Bret Harte - Three Partners

Prologue. The sun was going down on the Black Spur Range. The red light ithad kindled there was still eating its way along the serried crest,showing through gaps in the ranks of pines, etching out theinterstices of broken boughs, fading away and then flashingsuddenly out again like sparks in burnt-up paper. Then the nightwind swept down the whole mountain side, and began its usualstruggle with the shadows upclimbing from the valley, only to loseitself in the end and be absorbed in the all-conquering darkness.Yet for some time the pines on the long slope of Heavy Tree Hillmurmured and protested with swaying arms; but as the shadows stoleupwards, and cabin after cabin and tunnel after tunnel wereswallowed up, a complete silence followed. Only the sky remainedvisible--a vast concave mirror of dull steel, in which the starsdid not seem to be set, but only reflected. A single cabin door on the crest of Heavy Tree Hill had remainedopen to the wind and darkness. Then it was slowly shut by aninvisible figure, afterwards revealed by the embers of the fire itwas stirring. At first only this figure brooding over the hearthwas shown, but as the flames leaped up, two other figures could beseen sitting motionless before it. When the door was shut, theyacknowledged that interruption by slightly changing their position;the one who had risen to shut the door sank back into an invisibleseat, but the attitude of each man was one of profound reflectionor reserve, and apparently upon some common subject which made themrespect each other's silence. However, this was at last broken by alaugh. It was a boyish laugh, and came from the youngest of theparty. The two others turned their profiles and glanced inquiringlytowards him, but did not speak. "I was thinking," he began in apologetic explanation, "howmighty queer it was that while we were working like niggers on grubwages, without the ghost of a chance of making a strike, how weused to sit here, night after night, and flapdoodle and speculateabout what we'd do if we ever did make one; and now, GreatScott! that we have made it, and are just wallowing in gold,here we are sitting as glum and silent as if we'd had a washout!Why, Lord! I remember one night--not so long ago, either--that youtwo quarreled over the swell hotel you were going to stop at in'Frisco, and whether you wouldn't strike straight out for Londonand Rome and Paris, or go away to Japan and China and round byIndia and the Red Sea." "No, we didn't quarrel over it," said one of the figuresgently; "there was only a little discussion." "Yes, but you did, though," returned the young fellowmischievously, "and you told Stacy, there, that we'd better learnsomething of the world before we tried to buy it or even hire it,and that it was just as well to get the hayseed out of our hair andthe slumgullion off our boots before we mixed in politesociety." "Well, I don't see what's the matter with that sentiment now,"returned the second speaker goodhumoredly; "only," he addedgravely, "we didn't quarrel--God forbid!" There was something in the speaker's tone which seemed to toucha common chord in their natures, and this was voiced by Barker withsudden and almost pathetic earnestness. "I tell you what, boys, weought to swear here to-night to always stand by each other--in luckand out of it! We ought to hold ourselves always at each other'scall. We ought to have a kind of password or signal, you know, bywhich we could summon each other at any time from any quarter ofthe globe!" "Come off the roof, Barker," murmured Stacy, without lifting hiseyes from the fire. But Demorest smiled and glanced tolerantly atthe younger man. "Yes, but look here, Stacy," continued Barker, "comrades likeus, in the old days, used to do that in times of trouble andadventures. Why shouldn't we do it in our luck?" "There's a good deal in that, Barker boy," said Demorest,"though, as a general thing, passwords butter no parsnips, and theordinary, every-day, single yelp from a wolf brings the whole packtogether for business about as quick as a password. But you clingto that sentiment, and put it away with your gold-dust in yourbelt." "What I like about Barker is his commodiousness," said Stacy."Here he is, the only man among us that has his future fixed andhis preemption lines laid out and registered. He's already got agirl that he's going to marry and settle down with on the strengthof his luck. And I'd like to know what Kitty Carter, when she'sMrs. Barker, would say to her husband being signaled for from Asiaor Africa. I don't seem to see her tumbling to any password. Andwhen he and she go into a new partnership, I reckon she'll let theold one slide." "That's just where you're wrong!" said Barker, with quicklyrising color. "She's the sweetest girl in the world, and she'd besure to understand our feelings. Why, she thinks everything of youtwo; she was just eager for you to get this claim, which has put uswhere we are, when I held back, and if it hadn't been for her, byJove! we wouldn't have had it." "That was only because she cared for you," returnedStacy, with a half-yawn; "and now that you've got your shareshe isn't going to take a breathless interest in us. And, bythe way, I'd rather you'd remind us that we owe our luck toher than that she should ever remind you of it." "What do you mean?" said Barker quickly. But Demorest here roselazily, and, throwing a gigantic shadow on the wall, stood betweenthe two with his back to the fire. "He means," he said slowly,"that you're talking rot, and so is he. However, as yours comesfrom the heart and his from the head, I prefer yours. But you'reboth making me tired. Let's have a fresh deal." Nobody ever dreamed of contradicting Demorest. Nevertheless,Barker persisted eagerly: "But isn't it better for us to look atthis cheerfully and happily all round? There's nothing criminal inour having made a strike! It seems to me, boys, that of all ways ofmaking money it's the squarest and most level; nobody is the poorerfor it; our luck brings no misfortune to others. The gold was putthere ages ago for anybody to find; we found it. It hasn't beentarnished by man's touch before. I don't know how it strikes you,boys, but it seems to me that of all gifts that are going it is thestraightest. For whether we deserve it or not, it comes to usfirst-hand--from God!" The two men glanced quickly at the speaker, whose face flushedand then smiled embarrassedly as if ashamed of the enthusiasm intowhich he had been betrayed. But Demorest did not smile, and Stacy'seyes shone in the firelight as he said languidly, "I never heardthat prospecting was a religious occupation before. But I shouldn'twonder if you're right, Barker boy. So let's liquor up." Nevertheless he did not move, nor did the others. The fireleaped higher, bringing out the rude rafters and sternly economicdetails of the rough cabin, and making the occupants in their seatsbefore the fire look gigantic by contrast. "Who shut the door?" said Demorest after a pause. "I did," said Barker. "I reckoned it was getting cold." "Better open it again, now that the fire's blazing. It willlight the way if any of the men from below want to drop in thisevening." Stacy stared at his companion. "I thought that it was understoodthat we were giving them that dinner at Boomville tomorrow night,so that we might have the last evening here by ourselves in peaceand quietness?" "Yes, but if any one did want to come it would seemchurlish to shut him out," said Demorest. "I reckon you're feeling very much as I am," said Stacy, "thatthis good fortune is rather crowding to us three alone. For myself,I know," he continued, with a backward glance towards a blanketed,covered pile in the corner of the cabin, "that I feel ratheroppressed by--by its specific gravity, I calculate--and sort ofcrampy and twitchy in the legs, as if I ought to 'lite' out and dosomething, and yet it holds me here. All the same, I doubt ifanybody will come up--except from curiosity. Our luck has made themrather sore down the hill, for all they're coming to the dinnerto-morrow." "That's only human nature," said Demorest. "But," said Barker eagerly, "what does it mean? Why, only thisafternoon, when I was passing the 'Old Kentuck' tunnel, where thoseMarshalls have been grubbing along for four years without making asingle strike, I felt ashamed to look at them, and as they barelynodded to me I slinked by as if I had done them an injury. I don'tunderstand it." "It somehow does not seem to square with this 'gift of God' ideaof yours, does it?" said Stacy. "But we'll open the door and givethem a show." As he did so it seemed as if the night were their only guest,and had been waiting on the threshold to now enter bodily andpervade all things with its presence. With that cool, fragrantinflow of air they breathed freely. The red edge had gone fromBlack Spur, but it was even more clearly defined against the sky inits towering blackness. The sky itself had grown lighter, althoughthe stars still seemed mere reflections of the solitary pin-pointsof light scattered along the concave valley below. Mingling withthe cooler, restful air of the summit, yet penetratingly distinctfrom it, arose the stimulating breath of the pines below, still hotand panting from the day-long sun. The silence was intense. Thefar- off barking of a dog on the invisible river-bar nearly a milebeneath them came to them like a sound in a dream. They had risen,and, standing in the doorway, by common consent turned their facesto the east. It was the frequent attitude of the homerememberingminer, and it gave him the crowning glory of the view. For, beyondthe pine-hearsed summits, rarely seen except against the eveningsky, lay a thin, white cloud like a dropped portion of the MilkyWay. Faint with an indescribable pallor, remote yet distinct enoughto assert itself above and beyond all surrounding objects, it wasalways there. It was the snow-line of the Sierras. They turned away and silently reseated themselves, the samethought in the minds of each. Here was something they could nottake away, something to be left forever and irretrievablybehind,-left with the healthy life they had been leading, thecheerful endeavor, the undying hopefulness which it had fosteredand blessed. Was what they were taking away worth it? Andoddly enough, frank and outspoken as they had always been to eachother, that common thought remained unuttered. Even Barker wassilent; perhaps he was also thinking of Kitty. Suddenly two figures appeared in the very doorway of the cabin.The effect was startling upon the partners, who had only justreseated themselves, and for a moment they had forgotten that thenarrow band of light which shot forth from the open door renderedthe darkness on either side of it more impenetrable, and that outof this darkness, although themselves guided by the light, thefigures had just emerged. Yet one was familiar enough. It was theHill drunkard, Dick Hall, or, as he was called, "Whiskey Dick," or,indicated still more succinctly by the Hill humorists, "AlkyHall." Everybody had seen that sodden, puffy, but good-humored face;everybody had felt the fiery exhalations of that enormous redbeard, which always seemed to be kept in a state of moist, unkemptluxuriance by liquor; everybody knew the absurd dignity of mannerand attempted precision of statement with which he was wont todisguise his frequent excesses. Very few, however, knew, or caredto know, the pathetic weariness and chilling horror that sometimeslooked out of those bloodshot eyes. He was evidently equally unprepared for the three silent seatedfigures before the door, and for a moment looked at them blanklywith the doubts of a frequently deceived perception. Was he surethat they were quite real? He had not dared to look at hiscompanion for verification, but smiled vaguely. "Good-evening," said Demorest pleasantly. Whiskey Dick's face brightened. "Good-evenin', good-evenin'yourselves, boys--and see how you like it! Lemme interdrush my olefrien' William J. Steptoe, of Red Gulch. Stepsho--Steptoe-isshtay--ish stay--" He stopped, hiccupped, waved his hand gravely,and with an air of reproachful dignity concluded, "sojourning forthe present on the Bar. We wish to offer our congrashulashen andfelish--felish--" He paused again, and, leaning against the door-post, added severely, "--itations." His companion, however, laughed coarsely, and, pushing pastDick, entered the cabin. He was a short, powerful man, with aclosely cropped crust of beard and hair that seemed to adhere tohis round head like moss or lichen. He cast a glance--furtiverather than curious around the cabin, and said, with a familiaritythat had not even good humor to excuse it, "So you're the gaygaloots who've made the big strike? Thought I'd meander up the Hillwith this old bloat Alky, and drop in to see the show. And here youare, feeling your oats, eh? and not caring any particular G-d d--nif school keeps or not." "Show Mr. Steptoe--the whiskey," said Demorest to Stacy. Thenquietly addressing Dick, but ignoring Steptoe as completely asSteptoe had ignored his unfortunate companion, he said, "You quitestartled us at first. We did not see you come up the trail." "No. We came up the back trail to please Steptoe, who wanted tosee round the cabin," said Dick, glancing nervously yet with aforced indifference towards the whiskey which Stacy was offering tothe stranger. "What yer gettin' off there?" said Steptoe, facing Dick almostbrutally. "You know your tangled legs wouldn't take youstraight up the trail, and you had to make a circumbendibus. Gosh!if you hadn't scented this licker at the top you'd have never foundit." "No matter! I'm glad you did find it, Dick," saidDemorest, "and I hope you'll find the liquor good enough to pay youfor the trouble." Barker stared at Demorest. This extraordinary tolerance of thedrunkard was something new in his partner. But at a glance fromDemorest he led Dick to the demijohn and tin cup which stood on atable in the corner. And in another moment Dick had forgotten hiscompanion's rudeness. Demorest remained by the door, looking out into thedarkness. "Well," said Steptoe, putting down his emptied cup, "trot outyour strike. I reckon our eyes are strong enough to bear it now."Stacy drew the blanket from the vague pile that stood in thecorner, and discovered a deep tin prospecting-pan. It was heapedwith several large fragments of quartz. At first the marblewhiteness of the quartz and the glittering crystals of mica in itsveins were the most noticeable, but as they drew closer they couldsee the dull yellow of gold filling the decomposed and honeycombedportion of the rock as if still liquid and molten. The eyes of theparty sparkled like the mica--even those of Barker and Stacy, whowere already familiar with the treasure. "Which is the richest chunk?" asked Steptoe in a thickeningvoice. Stacy pointed it out. "Why, it's smaller than the others." "Heft it in your hand," said Barker, with boyish enthusiasm. The short, thick fingers of Steptoe grasped it with a certainaquiline suggestion; his whole arm strained over it until his facegrew purple, but he could not lift it. "Thar useter be a little game in the 'Frisco Mint," said Dick,restored to fluency by his liquor, "when thar war ladies visitingit, and that was to offer to give 'em any of those little boxes ofgold coin, that contained five thousand dollars, ef they wouldkindly lift it from the counter and take it away! It wasn't nobigger than one of these chunks; but Jiminy! you oughter have seedthem gals grip and heave on it, and then hev to give it up! You seethey didn't know anything about the paci--(hic) the speshif--" Hestopped with great dignity, and added with painful precision, "thespecific gravity of gold." "Dry up!" said Steptoe roughly. Then turning to Stacy he saidabruptly, "But where's the rest of it? You've got more thanthat." "We sent it to Boomville this morning. You see we've sold outour claim to a company who take it up to-morrow, and put up a milland stamps. In fact, it's under their charge now. They've got agang of men on the claim already." "And what mout ye hev got for it, if it's a fair question?" saidSteptoe, with a forced smile. Stacy smiled also. "I don't know that it's a business question,"he said. "Five hundred thousand dollars," said Demorest abruptly from thedoorway, "and a treble interest." The eyes of the two men met. There was no mistaking the dullfire of envy in Steptoe's glance, but Demorest received it with acertain cold curiosity, and turned away as the sound of arrivingvoices came from without. "Five hundred thousand's a big figger," said Steptoe, with acoarse laugh, "and I don't wonder it makes you feel so d----dsassy. But it was a fair question." Unfortunately it here occurred to the whiskey-stimulated brainof Dick that the friend he had introduced was being treated withscant courtesy, and he forgot his own treatment by Steptoe. Leaningagainst the wall he waved a dignified rebuke. "I'm sashified my olefrien' is akshuated by only businesh principles." He paused,recollected himself, and added with great precision: "When I say hehimself has a valuable claim in Red Gulch, and to my shertainknowledge has received offers--I have said enough." The laugh that broke from Stacy and Barker, to whom theinfelicitous reputation of Red Gulch was notorious, did not allaySteptoe's irritation. He darted a vindictive glance at theunfortunate Dick, but joined in the laugh. "And what was ye goin'to do with that?" he said, pointing to the treasure. "Oh, we're taking that with us. There's a chunk for each of usas a memento. We cast lots for the choice, and Demorest won,--thatone which you couldn't lift with one hand, you know," saidStacy. "Oh, couldn't I? I reckon you ain't goin' to give me the samechance that they did at the Mint, eh?" Although the remark was accompanied with his usual coarse,familiar laugh, there was a look in his eye so inconsequent in itssignificance that Stacy would have made some reply, but at thismoment Demorest re-entered the cabin, ushering in a half dozenminers from the Bar below. They were, although youngish men, someof the older locators in the vicinity, yet, through years ofseclusion and uneventful labors, they had acquired a certainchildish simplicity of thought and manner that was alternatelyamusing and pathetic. They had never intruded upon the reserve ofthe three partners of Heavy Tree Hill before; nothing but aninfantine curiosity, a shy recognition of the partners' courtesy ininviting them with the whole population of Heavy Tree to the dinnerthe next day, and the never-to-be-resisted temptation of an eveningof "free liquor" and forgetfulness of the past had brought themthere now. Among them, and yet not of them, was a young man who,although speaking English without accent, was distinctly of adifferent nationality and race. This, with a certain neatness ofdress and artificial suavity of address, had gained him thenickname of "the Count" and "Frenchy," although he was really ofFlemish extraction. He was the Union Ditch Company's agent on theBar, by virtue of his knowledge of languages. Barker uttered an exclamation of pleasure when he saw him.Himself the incarnation of naturalness, he had always secretlyadmired this young foreigner, with his lacquered smoothness,although a vague consciousness that neither Stacy nor Demorestshared his feelings had restricted their acquaintance.Nevertheless, he was proud now to see the bow with which Paul VanLoo entered the cabin as if it were a drawing-room, and perhaps didnot reflect upon that want of real feeling in an act which made theothers uncomfortable. The slight awkwardness their entrance produced, however, wasquickly forgotten when the blanket was again lifted from the pan oftreasure. Singularly enough, too, the same feverish light came intothe eyes of each as they all gathered around this yellow shrine.Even the polite Paul rudely elbowed his way between the others,though his artificial "Pardon" seemed to Barker to condone this actof brutal instinct. But it was more instructive to observe themanner in which the older locators received this confirmation ofthe fickle Fortune that had overlooked their weary labors and yearsof waiting to lavish her favors on the new and inexperiencedamateurs. Yet as they turned their dazzled eyes upon the threepartners there was no envy or malice in their depths, no reproachon their lips, no insincerity in their wondering satisfaction.Rather there was a touching, almost childlike resumption of hope asthey gazed at this conclusive evidence of Nature's bounty. The goldhad been there--they had only missed it! And if there, morecould be found! Was it not a proof of the richness of Heavy TreeHill? So strongly was this reflected on their faces that a casualobserver, contrasting them with the thoughtful countenances of thereal owners, would have thought them the lucky ones. It touchedBarker's quick sympathies, it puzzled Stacy, it made Demorest moreserious, it aroused Steptoe's active contempt. Whiskey Dick aloneremained stolid and impassive in a desperate attempt to pullhimself once more together. Eventually he succeeded, even to theambitious achievement of mounting a chair and lifting his tin cupwith a dangerously unsteady hand, which did not, however, affecthis precision of utterance, and said:-"Order, gentlemen! We'll drink success to--to"-"The next strike!" said Barker, leaping impetuously on anotherchair and beaming upon the old locators--"and may it come to thosewho have so long deserved it!" His sincere and generous enthusiasm seemed to break the spell ofsilence that had fallen upon them. Other toasts quickly followed.In the general good feeling Barker attached himself to Van Loo withhis usual boyish effusion, and in a burst of confidence impartedthe secret of his engagement to Kitty Carter. Van Loo listened withpolite attention, formal congratulations, but inscrutable eyes,that occasionally wandered to Stacy and again to the treasure. Aslight chill of disappointment came over Barker's quicksensitiveness. Perhaps his enthusiasm had bored this superior manof the world. Perhaps his confidences were in bad taste! With a newsense of his inexperience he turned sadly away. Van Loo took thatopportunity to approach Stacy. "What's all this I hear of Barker being engaged to Miss Carter?"he said, with a faintly superior smile. "Is it really true?" "Yes. Why shouldn't it be?" returned Stacy bluntly. Van Loo was instantly deprecating and smiling. "Why not, ofcourse? But isn't it sudden?" "They have known each other ever since he's been on Heavy TreeHill," responded Stacy. "Ah, yes! True," said Van Loo. "But now"-"Well--he's got money enough to marry, and he's going tomarry." "Rather young, isn't he?" said Van Loo, still deprecatingly."And she's got nothing. Used to wait on the table at her father'shotel in Boomville, didn't she?" "Yes. What of that? We all know it." "Of course. It's an excellent thing for her--and her father.He'll have a rich son-in-law. About two hundred thousand is hisshare, isn't it? I suppose old Carter is delighted?" Stacy had thought this before, but did not care to have itcorroborated by this superfine young foreigner. "And I don't reckonthat Barker is offended if he is," he said curtly as he turnedaway. Nevertheless, he felt irritated that one of the threesuperior partners of Heavy Tree Hill should be thought a dupe. Suddenly the conversation dropped, the laughter ceased. Everyone turned round, and, by a common instinct, looked towards thedoor. From the obscurity of the hill slope below came a wonderfultenor voice, modulated by distance and spiritualized by thedarkness:-"When at some future day I shall be far away, Thou wilt be weeping, Thy lone watch keeping." The men looked at one another. "That's Jack Hamlin," they said."What's he doing here?" "The wolves are gathering around fresh meat," said Steptoe, withhis coarse laugh and a glance at the treasure. "Didn't ye know hecame over from Red Dog yesterday?" "Well, give Jack a fair show and his own game," said one of theold locators, "and he'd clean out that pile afore sunrise." "And lose it next day," added another. "But never turn a hair or change a muscle in either case," saida third. "Lord! I've heard him sing away just like that when he'sbeen leaving the board with five thousand dollars in his pocket, orgoing away stripped of his last red cent." Van Loo, who had been listening with a peculiar smile, here saidin his most deprecating manner, "Yes, but did you never considerthe influence that such a man has on the hard-working tunnelmen,who are ready to gamble their whole week's earnings to him? Perhapsnot. But I know the difficulties of getting the Ditch rates fromthese men when he has been in camp." He glanced around him with some importance, but only a laughfollowed his speech. "Come, Frenchy," said an old locator, "youonly say that because your little brother wanted to play with Jacklike a grown man, and when Jack ordered him off the board and hebecame sassy, Jack scooted him outer the saloon." Van Loo's face reddened with an anger that had the apparenteffect of removing every trace of his former polished repose, andleaving only a hard outline beneath. At which Demorestinterfered:-"I can't say that I see much difference in gambling by puttingmoney into a hole in the ground and expecting to take more from itthan by putting it on a card for the same purpose." Here the ravishing tenor voice, which had been approaching,ceased, and was succeeded by a heart-breaking and equally melodiouswhistling to finish the bar of the singer's song. And the nextmoment Jack Hamlin appeared in the doorway. Whatever was his present financial condition, in perfect self-possession and charming sang-froid he fully bore out his previousdescription. He was as clean and refreshing looking as a madronotree in the dust-blown forest. An odor of scented soap and freshlyironed linen was wafted from him; there was scarcely a crease inhis white waistcoat, nor a speck upon his varnished shoes. He mighthave been an auditor of the previous conversation, so quickly andcompletely did he seem to take in the whole situation at a glance.Perhaps there was an extra tilt to his black-ribboned Panama hat,and a certain dancing devilry in his brown eyes--which might alsohave been an answer to adverse criticism. "When I, his truth to prove, would trifle with my love," hewarbled in general continuance from the doorway. Then droppingcheerfully into speech, he added, "Well, boys, I am here to welcomethe little stranger, and to trust that the family are doing as wellas can be expected. Ah! there it is! Bless it!" he went on, walkingleisurely to the treasure. "Triplets, too!--and plump at that. Haveyou had 'em weighed?" Frankness was an essential quality of Heavy Tree Hill. "We werejust saying, Jack," said an old locator, "that, giving you a fairshow and your own game, you could manage to get away with that pilebefore daybreak." "And I'm just thinking," said Jack cheerfully, "that there weresome of you here that could do that without any such uselesspreliminary." His brown eyes rested for a moment on Steptoe, butturning quite abruptly to Van Loo, he held out his hand. Startledand embarrassed before the others, the young man at last advancedhis, when Jack coolly put his own, as if forgetfully, in hispocket. "I thought you might like to know what that little brotherof yours is doing," he said to Van Loo, yet looking at Steptoe. "Ifound him wandering about the Hill here quite drunk." "I have repeatedly warned him"--began Van Loo, reddening. "Against bad company--I know," suggested Jack gayly; "yet inspite of all that, I think he owes some of his liquor to Steptoeyonder." "I never supposed the fool would get drunk over a glass ofwhiskey offered in fun," said Steptoe harshly, yet evidently quiteas much disconcerted as angry. "The trouble with Steptoe," said Hamlin, thoughtfully spanninghis slim waist with both hands as he looked down at his polishedshoes, "is that he has such a soft-hearted liking for allweaknesses. Always wanting to protect chaps that can't look afterthemselves, whether it's Whiskey Dick there when he has a pull on,or some nigger when he's made a little strike, or that strayinglamb of Van Loo's when he's puppy drunk. But you're wrong about me,boys. You can't draw me in any game to-night. This is one of mynights off, which I devote exclusively to contemplation and song.But," he added, suddenly turning to his three hosts with abewildering and fascinating change of expression, "I couldn'tresist coming up here to see you and your pile, even if I never sawthe one or the other before, and am not likely to see either again.I believe in luck! And it comes a mighty sight oftener than afellow thinks it does. But it doesn't come to stay. So I'd adviseyou to keep your eyes skinned, and hang on to it while it's withyou, like grim death. So long!" Resisting all attempts of his hosts--who had apparently fallenas suddenly and unaccountably under the magic of his manner--todetain him longer, he stepped lightly away, his voice presentlyrising again in melody as he descended the hill. Nor was it at allremarkable that the others, apparently drawn by the same inevitablemagnetism, were impelled to follow him, naturally joining theirvoices with his, leaving Steptoe and Van Loo so markedly behindthem alone that they were compelled at last in sheer embarrassmentto close up the rear of the procession. In another moment the cabinand the three partners again relapsed into the peace and quiet ofthe night. With the dying away of the last voices on the hillsidethe old solitude reasserted itself. But since the irruption of the strangers they had lost theirformer sluggish contemplation, and now busied themselves inpreparation for their early departure from the cabin the nextmorning. They had arranged to spend the following day and night atBoomville and Carter's Hotel, where they were to give theirfarewell dinner to Heavy Tree Hill. They talked but littletogether: since the rebuff his enthusiastic confidences hadreceived from Van Loo, Barker had been grave and thoughtful, andStacy, with the irritating recollection of Van Loo's criticisms inhis mind, had refrained from his usual rallying of Barker. Oddlyenough, they spoke chiefly of Jack Hamlin,-till then personally astranger to them, on account of his infelix reputation,--and eventhe critical Demorest expressed a wish they had known him before."But you never know the real value of anything until you'requitting it or it's quitting you," he added sententiously. Barker and Stacy both stared at their companion. It was unlikeDemorest to regret anything-particularly a mere socialdiversion. "They say," remarked Stacy, "that if you had known Jack Hamlinearlier and professionally, a great deal of real value would havequitted you before he did." "Don't repeat that rot flung out by men who have played Jack'sgame and lost," returned Demorest derisively. "I'd rather trust himthan"-- He stopped, glanced at the meditative Barker, and thenconcluded abruptly, "the whole caboodle of his critics." They were silent for a few moments, and then seemed to havefallen into their former dreamy mood as they relapsed into theirold seats again. At last Stacy drew a long breath. "I wish we hadsent those nuggets off with the others this morning." "Why?" said Demorest suddenly. "Why? Well, d--n it all! they kind of oppress me, don't you see.I seem to feel 'em here, on my chest--all the three," returnedStacy only half jocularly. "It's their d----d specific gravity, Isuppose. I don't like the idea of sleeping in the same room with'em. They're altogether too much for us three men to be left alonewith." "You don't mean that you think that anybody would attempt"--saidDemorest. Stacy curled a fighting lip rather superciliously. "No; I don'tthink that--I rather wish I did. It's the blessed chunks ofsolid gold that seem to have got us fast, don't you know,and are going to stick to us for good or ill. A sort ofFrankenstein monster that we've picked out of a hole frombelow." "I know just what Stacy means," said Barker breathlessly,rounding his gray eyes. "I've felt it, too. Couldn't we make a sortof cache of it--bury it just outside the cabin for to-night? Itwould be sort of putting it back into its old place, you know, forthe time being. It might like it." The other two laughed. "Rather rough on Providence, Barker boy,"said Stacy, "handing back the Heaven-sent gift so soon! Besides,what's to keep any prospector from coming along and making a strikeof it? You know that's mining law--if you haven't preempted thespot as a claim." But Barker was too staggered by this material statement to makeany reply, and Demorest arose. "And I feel that you'd both betterbe turning in, as we've got to get up early." He went to the cornerof the cabin, and threw the blanket back over the pan and itstreasure. "There that'll keep the chunks from getting up to rideastride of you like a nightmare." He shut the door and gave amomentary glance at its cheap hinges and the absence of bolt orbar. Stacy caught his eye. "We'll miss this security in SanFrancisco--perhaps even in Boomville," he sighed. It was scarcely ten o'clock, but Stacy and Barker had begun toundress themselves with intervals of yawning and desultory talk,Barker continuing an amusing story, with one stocking off and histrousers hanging on his arm, until at last both men were snuglycurled up in their respective bunks. Presently Stacy's voice camefrom under the blankets:-"Hallo! aren't you going to turn in too?" "Not yet," said Demorest from his chair before the fire. "Yousee it's the last night in the old shanty, and I reckon I'll seethe rest of it out." "That's so," said the impulsive Barker, struggling violentlywith his blankets. "I tell you what, boys: we just ought to make awatch-night of it--a regular vigil, you know--until twelve atleast. Hold on! I'll get up, too!" But here Demorest arose, caughthis youthful partner's bare foot which went searching painfully forthe ground in one hand, tucked it back under the blankets, andheaping them on the top of him, patted the bulk with anauthoritative, paternal air. "You'll just say your prayers and go to sleep, sonny. You'llwant to be fresh as a daisy to appear before Miss Kitty to-morrowearly, and you can keep your vigils for to-morrow night, afterdinner, in the back drawing-room. I said 'Good-night,' and I meanit!" Protesting feebly, Barker finally yielded in a nestling shiverand a sudden silence. Demorest walked back to his chair. Aprolonged snore came from Stacy's bunk; then everything was quiet.Demorest stirred up the fire, cast a huge root upon it, and,leaning back in his chair, sat with half-closed eyes anddreamed. It was an old dream that for the past three years had come tohim daily, sometimes even overtaking him under the shade of abuckeye in his noontide rest on his claim,--a dream that had neveryet failed to wait for him at night by the fireside when hispartners were at rest; a dream of the past, but so real that italways made the present seem the dream through which he was movingtowards some sure awakening. It was not strange that it should come to him to-night, as ithad often come before, slowly shaping itself out of the obscurityas the vision of a fair young girl seated in one of the emptychairs before him. Always the same pretty, childlike face, fraughtwith a half-frightened, half-wondering trouble; always the sameslender, graceful figure, but always glimmering in diamonds andsatin, or spiritual in lace and pearls, against his own rude andsordid surroundings; always silent with parted lips, until thenight wind smote some chord of recollection, and then mingled aremembered voice with his own. For at those times he seemed tospeak also, albeit with closed lips, and an utterance inaudible toall but her. "Well?" he said sadly. "Well?" the voice repeated, like a gentle echo blending with hisown. "You know it all now," he went on. "You know that it has come atlast,--all that I had worked for, prayed for; all that would havemade us happy here; all that would have saved you to me has come atlast, and all too late!" "Too late!" echoed the voice with his. "You remember," he went on, "the last day we were together. Youremember your friends and family would have you give me up--apenniless man. You remember when they reproached you with mypoverty, and told you that it was only your wealth that I wasseeking, that I then determined to go away and never to return toclaim you until that reproach could be removed. You remember,dearest, how you clung to me and bade me stay with you, even flywith you, but not to leave you alone with them. You wore the samedress that day, darling; your eyes had the same wondering childlikefear and trouble in them; your jewels glittered on you as youtrembled, and I refused. In my pride, or rather in my weakness andcowardice, I refused. I came away and broke my heart among theserocks and ledges, yet grew strong; and you, my love, you,sheltered and guarded by those you loved, you"-- He stoppedand buried his face in his hands. The night wind breathed down thechimney, and from the stirred ashes on the hearth came the softwhisper, "I died." "And then," he went on, "I cared for nothing. Sometimes my heartawoke for this young partner of mine in his innocent, trustful lovefor a girl that even in her humble station was far beyond hishopes, and I pitied myself in him. Home, fortune, friends, I nolonger cared for--all were forgotten. And now they are returning tome--only that I may see the hollowness and vanity of them, andtaste the bitterness for which I have sacrificed you. And here, onthis last night of my exile, I am confronted with only thejealousy, the doubt, the meanness and selfishness that is to come.Too late! Too late!" The wondering, troubled eyes that had looked into his hereappeared to clear and brighten with a sweet prescience. Was it thewind moaning in the chimney that seemed to whisper to him: "Toolate, beloved, for me, but not for you. I died, but Lovestill lives. Be happy, Philip. And in your happiness I too may liveagain"? He started. In the flickering firelight the chair was empty. Thewind that had swept down the chimney had stirred the ashes with asound like the passage of a rustling skirt. There was a chill inthe air and a smell like that of opened earth. A nervous shiverpassed over him. Then he sat upright. There was no mistake; it wasno superstitious fancy, but a faint, damp current of air wasactually flowing across his feet towards the fireplace. He wasabout to rise when he stopped suddenly and became motionless. He was actively conscious now of a strange sound which hadaffected him even in the preoccupation of his vision. It was agentle brushing of some yielding substance like that made by a softbroom on sand, or the sweep of a gown. But to his mountain ears,attuned to every woodland sound, it was not like the gnawing ofgopher or squirrel, the scratching of wildcat, nor the hairyrubbing of bear. Nor was it human; the long, deep respirations ofhis sleeping companions were distinct from that monotonous sound.He could not even tell if it were in the cabin or without.Suddenly his eye fell upon the pile in the corner. The blanket thatcovered the treasure was actually moving! He rose quickly, but silently, alert, self-contained, andmenacing. For this dreamer, this bereaved man, this scornfulphilosopher of riches had disappeared with that midnight trespassupon the sacred treasure. The movement of the blanket ceased; thesoft, swishing sound recommenced. He drew a glittering bowie-knifefrom his boot- leg, and in three noiseless strides was beside thepile. There he saw what he fully expected to see,--a narrow,horizontal gap between the log walls of the cabin and the adobefloor, slowly widening and deepening by the burrowing of unseenhands from without. The cold outer air which he had felt before wasnow plainly flowing into the heated cabin through the opening. Theswishing sound recommenced, and stopped. Then the four fingers of ahand, palm downwards, were cautiously introduced between the bottomlog and the denuded floor. Upon that intruding hand the bowie-knifeof Demorest descended like a flash of lightning. There was nooutcry. Even in that supreme moment Demorest felt a pang ofadmiration for the stoicism of the unseen trespasser. But themaimed hand was quickly withdrawn, and as quickly Demorest rushedto the door and dashed into the outer darkness. For an instant he was dazed and bewildered by the sudden change.But the next moment he saw a dodging, doubling figure runningbefore him, and threw himself upon it. In the shock both men fell,but even in that contact Demorest felt the tangled beard andalcoholic fumes of Whiskey Dick, and felt also that the hands whichwere thrown up against his breast, the palms turned outward withthe instinctive movement of a timid, defenseless man, wereunstained with soil or blood. With an oath he threw the drunkardfrom him and dashed to the rear of the cabin. But too late! There,indeed, was the scattered earth, there the widened burrow as it hadbeen excavated apparently by that mutilated hand--but nothingelse! He turned back to Whiskey Dick. But the miserable man, althoughstill retaining a look of dazed terror in his eyes, had recoveredhis feet in a kind of angry confidence and a forced sense ofinjury. What did Demorest mean by attacking "innoshent" gentlemenon the trail outside his cabin? Yes! Outside his cabin, hewould swear it! "What were you doing here at midnight?" demanded Demorest. What was he doing? What was any gentleman doing? He wasn't anymolly-coddle to go to bed at ten o'clock! What was he doing?Well--he'd been with men who didn't shut their doors and turn theboys out just in the shank of the evening. He wasn't any Barker tobe wet-nursed by Demorest. "Some one else was here!" said Demorest sternly, with his eyesfixed on Whiskey Dick. The dull glaze which seemed to veil theouter world from the drunkard's pupils shifted suddenly with such alook of direct horror that Demorest was fain to turn away his own.But the veil mercifully returned, and with it Dick's worked-upsense of injury. Nobody was there--not "a shole." Did Demorestthink if there had been any of his friends there they would havestood by like "dogsh" and seen him insulted? Demorest turned away and re-entered the cabin as Dick lurchedheavily forward, still muttering, down the trail. The excitementover, a sickening repugnance to the whole incident took the placeof Demorest's resentment and indignation. There had been a cowardlyattempt to rob them of their miserable treasure. He had met it andfrustrated it in almost as brutal a fashion: the gold was alreadytarnished with blood. To his surprise, yet relief, he found hispartners unconscious of the outrage, still sleeping with thephysical immobility of over-excited and tired men. Should he awakenthem? No! He should have to awaken also their suspicions and desirefor revenge. There was no danger of a further attack; there was nofear that the culprit would disclose himself, and to- morrow theywould be far away. Let oblivion rest upon that night's stain on thehonor of Heavy Tree Hill. He rolled a small barrel before the opening, smoothed thedislodged earth, replaced the pan with its treasure, and trustedthat in the bustle of the early morning departure his partnersmight not notice any change. Stopping before the bunk of Stacy heglanced at the sleeping man. He was lying on his back, butbreathing heavily, and his hands were moving towards his chest asif, indeed, his strange fancy of the golden incubus were beingrealized. Demorest would have wakened him, but presently, with asigh of relief, the sleeper turned over on his side. It waspleasanter to look at Barker, whose damp curls were matted over hissmooth, boyish forehead, and whose lips were parted in a smileunder the silken wings of his brown mustache. He, too, seemed to betrying to speak, and remembering some previous revelations whichhad amused them, Demorest leaned over him fraternally with ananswering smile, waiting for the beloved one's name to pass theyoung man's lips. But he only murmured, "Three--hundred-thousanddollars!" The elder man turned away with a grave face. Theinfluence of the treasure was paramount. When he had placed one of the chairs against the unprotecteddoor at an angle which would prevent any easy or noiselessintrusion, Demorest threw himself on his bunk without undressing,and turned his face towards the single window of the cabin thatlooked towards the east. He did not apprehend another covertattempt against the gold. He did not fear a robbery with force andarms, although he was satisfied that there was more than oneconcerned in it, but this he attributed only to the encumberingweight of their expected booty. He simply waited for the dawn. Itwas some time before his eyes were greeted with the vague opalinebrightness of the firmament which meant the vanishing of the pallidsnow-line before the coming day. A bird twittered on the roof. Theair was chill; he drew his blanket around him. Then he closed hiseyes, he fancied only for a moment, but when he opened them thedoor was standing open in the strong daylight. He sprang to hisfeet, but the next moment he saw it was only Stacy who had passedout, and was returning fully dressed, bringing water from thespring to fill the kettle. But Stacy's face was so grave that,recalling his disturbed sleep, Demorest laughingly inquired if hehad been haunted by the treasure. But to his surprise Stacy putdown the kettle, and, with a hurried glance at the still sleepingBarker, said in a low voice:-"I want you to do something for me without asking why. Later Iwill tell you." Demorest looked at him fixedly. "What is it?" he said. "The pack-mules will be here in a few moments. Don't wait toclose up or put away anything here, but clap that gold in thesaddle- bags, and take Barker with you and 'lite' out for Boomvilleat once. I will overtake you later." "Is there no time to discuss this?" asked Demorest. "No," said Stacy bluntly. "Call me a crank, say I'm in a bluefunk"--his compressed lips and sharp black eyes did not lendthemselves much to that hypothesis--"only get out of this with thatstuff, and take Barker with you! I'm not responsible for myselfwhile it's here." Demorest knew Stacy to be combative, but practical. If he hadnot been assured of his partner's last night slumbers he might havethought he knew of the attempt. Or if he had discovered theturned-up ground in the rear of the cabin his curiosity would havedemanded an explanation. Demorest paused only for a moment, andsaid, "Very well, I will go." "Good! I'll rouse out Barker, but not a word to him--except thathe must go. The rousing out of Barker consisted of Stacy's lifting thatyoung gentleman bodily from his bunk and standing him upright inthe open doorway. But Barker was accustomed to this Spartanprocess, and after a moment's balancing with closed lids like anunwrapped mummy, he sat down in the doorway and began to dress. Heat first demurred to their departure except all together--it was sounfraternal; but eventually he allowed himself to be persuaded outof it and into his clothes. For Barker had also had hisvisions in the night, one of which was that they should build abeautiful villa on the site of the old cabin and solemnly agree tocome every year and pass a week in it together. "I thought atfirst," he said, sliding along the floor in search of differentarticles of his dress, or stopping gravely to catch them as theywere thrown to him by his partners, "that we'd have it atBoomville, as being handier to get there; but I've concluded we'dbetter have it here, a little higher up the hill, where it could beseen over the whole Black Spur Range. When we weren't here we coulduse it as a Hut of Refuge for broken-down or washed-out miners orweary travelers, like those hospices in the Alps, you know, andhave somebody to keep it for us. You see I've thought even ofthat, and Van Loo is the very man to take charge of it forus. You see he's got such good manners and speaks two languages.Lord! if a German or Frenchman came along, poor and distressed, VanLoo would just chip in his own language. See? You've got to thinkof all these details, you see, boys. And we might call it 'The Restof the Three Partners,' or 'Three Partners' Rest.'" "And you might begin by giving us one," said Stacy. "Dry up anddrink your coffee." "I'll draw out the plans. I've got it all in my head," continuedthe enthusiastic Barker, unheeding the interruption. "I'll just runout and take a look at the site, it's only right back of thecabin." But here Stacy caught him by his dangling belt as he wasflying out of the door with one boot on, and thrust him down in achair with a tin cup of coffee in his hand. "Keep the plans in your head, Barker boy," said Demorest, "forhere are the pack mules and packer." This was quite enough todivert the impressionable young man, who speedily finished hisdressing, as a mule bearing a large pack-saddle and two enormoussaddle-bags or pouches drove up before the door, led by a muleteeron a small horse. The transfer of the treasure to the saddle-bagswas quickly made by their united efforts, as the first rays of thesun were beginning to paint the hillside. Shading his keen eyeswith his hand, Stacy stood in the doorway and handed Demorest thetwo rifles. Demorest hesitated. "Hadn't you better keepone?" he said, looking in his partner's eyes with his firstchallenge of curiosity. The sun seemed to put a humorous twinkleinto Stacy's glance as he returned, "Not much! And you'd bettertake my revolver with you, too. I'm feeling a little better now,"he said, looking at the saddlebags, "but I'm not fit to be trustedyet with carnal weapons. When the other mule comes and is packedI'll overtake you on the horse." A little more satisfied, although still wondering and perplexed,Demorest shouldered one rifle, and with Barker, who was carryingthe other, followed the muleteer and his equipage down the trail.For a while he was a little ashamed of his part in this unusualspectacle of two armed men convoying a laden mule in broaddaylight, but, luckily, it was too early for the Bar miners to begoing to work, and as the tunnelmen were now at breakfast the trailwas free of wayfarers. At the point where it crossed the main roadDemorest, however, saw Steptoe and Whiskey Dick emerge from thethicket, apparently in earnest conversation. Demorest felt hisrepugnance and half-restrained suspicions suddenly return. Yet hedid not wish to betray them before Barker, nor was he willing, incase of an emergency, to allow the young man to be entirelyunprepared. Calling him to follow, he ran quickly ahead of theladen mule, and was relieved to find that, looking back, hiscompanion had brought his rifle to a "ready," through someinstinctive feeling of defense. As Steptoe and Whiskey Dick, amoment later discovering them, were evidently surprised, thereseemed, however, to be no reason for fearing an outbreak. Suddenly,at a whisper from Steptoe, he and Whiskey Dick both threw up theirhands, and stood still on the trail a few yards from them in aburlesque of the usual recognized attitude of helplessness, while ahoarse laugh broke from Steptoe. "D----d if we didn't think you were road-agents! But we seeyou're only guarding your treasure. Rather fancy style for HeavyTree Hill, ain't it? Things must be gettin' rough up thar to hev totake out your guns like that!" Demorest had looked keenly at the four hands thus exhibited, andwas more concerned that they bore no trace of wounds or mutilationthan at the insult of the speech, particularly as he had a distinctimpression that the action was intended to show him the futility ofhis suspicions. "I am glad to see that if you haven't any arms in your handsyou're not incapable of handling them," said Demorest coolly, as hepassed by them and again fell into the rear of the muleteer. But Barker had thought the incident very funny, and laughedeffusively at Whiskey Dick. "I didn't know that Steptoe was up tothat kind of fun," he said, "and I suppose we did lookrather rough with these guns as we ran on ahead of the mule. Butthen you know that when you called to me I really thought you werein for a shindy. All the same, Whiskey Dick did that 'hands up' toperfection: how he managed it I don't know, but his knees seemed toknock together as if he was in a real funk." Demorest had thought so too, but he made no reply. How far thatmiserable drunkard was a forced or willing accomplice of the eventsof last night was part of a question that had become more and morerepugnant to him as he was leaving the scene of it forever. It hadcome upon him, desecrating the dream he had dreamt that last nightand turning its hopeful climax to bitterness. Small wonder thatBarker, walking by his side, had his quick sympathies aroused, andas he saw that shadow, which they were all familiar with, but hadnever sought to penetrate, fall upon his companion's handsome face,even his youthful spirits yielded to it. They were both relievedwhen the clatter of hoofs behind them, as they reached the valley,announced the approach of Stacy. "I started with the second muleand the last load soon after you left," he explained, "and havejust passed them. I thought it better to join you and let the otherload follow. Nobody will interfere with that." "Then you are satisfied?" said Demorest, regarding himsteadfastly. "You bet! Look!" He turned in his saddle and pointed to the crest of the hillthey had just descended. Above the pines circling the lower slopeabove the bare ledges of rock and outcrop, a column of thick blacksmoke was rising straight as a spire in the windless air. "That's the old shanty passing away," said Stacy complacently."I reckon there won't be much left of it before we get toBoomville." Demorest and Barker stared. "You fired it?" said Barker,trembling with excitement. "Yes," said Stacy. "I couldn't bear to leave the old rookery forcoyotes and wild-cats to gather in, so I touched her off before Ileft." "But"--said Barker. "But," repeated Stacy composedly. "Hallo! what's the matter withthat new plan of 'The Rest' that you're going to build, eh? Youdon't want them both." "And you did this rather than leave the dear old cabin tostrangers?" said Barker, with kindling eyes. "Stacy, I didn't thinkyou had that poetry in you!" "There's heaps in me, Barker boy, that you don't know, and Idon't exactly sabe myself." "Only," continued the young fellow eagerly, "we ought to haveall been there! We ought to have made a solemn rite of it,you know,-- a kind of sacrifice. We ought to have poured a kind oflibation on the ground!" "I did sprinkle a little kerosene over it, I think," returnedStacy, "just to help things along. But if you want to see herflaming, Barker, you just run back to that last corner on the roadbeyond the big red wood. That's the spot for a view." As Barker--always devoted to a spectacle--swiftly disappearedthe two men faced each other. "Well, what does it all mean?" saidDemorest gravely. "It means, old man," said Stacy suddenly, "that if we hadn't hadnigger luck, the same blind luck that sent us that strike, you andI and that Barker over there would have been swirling in that smokeup to the sky about two hours ago!" He stopped and added in alower, but earnest voice, "Look here, Phil! When I went out tofetch water this morning I smelt something queer. I went round tothe back of the cabin and found a hole dug under the floor, andpiled against the corner wall a lot of brush-wood and a can ofkerosene. Some of the kerosene had been already poured on thebrush. Everything was ready to light, and only my coming out anhour earlier had frightened the devils away. The idea was to setthe place on fire, suffocate us in the smoke of the kerosene pouredinto the hole, and then to rush in and grab the treasure. It was asystematic plan!" "No!" said Demorest quietly. "No?" repeated Stacy. "I told you I saw the whole thing and tookaway the kerosene, which I hid, and after you had gone used it tofire the cabin with, to see if the ones I suspected would gather towatch their work." "It was no part of their first plan"' said Demorest,"which was only robbery. Listen!" He hurriedly recounted hisexperience of the preceding night to the astonished Stacy. "No, thefire was an afterthought and revenge," he added sternly. "But you say you cut the robber in the hand; there would be nodifficulty in identifying him by that." "I wounded only a hand," said Demorest. "But there was ahead in that attempt that I never saw." He then revealed hisown half- suspicions, but how they were apparently refuted by thebravado of Steptoe and Whiskey Dick. "Then that was the reason they didn't gather at thefire," said Stacy quickly. "Ah!" said Demorest, "then you too suspected them?" Stacy hesitated, and then said abruptly, "Yes." Demorest was silent for a moment. "Why didn't you tell me this this morning?" he said gently. Stacy pointed to the distant Barker. "I didn't want you to tellhim. I thought it better for one partner to keep a secret from twothan for the two to keep it from one. Why didn't you tell me ofyour experience last night?" "I am afraid it was for the same reason," said Demorest, with afaint smile. "And it sometimes seems to me, Jim, that we ought toimitate Barker's frankness. In our dread of tainting him with ourown knowledge of evil we are sending him out into the world verypoorly equipped, for all his three hundred thousand dollars." "I reckon you're right," said Stacy briefly, extending his hand."Shake on that!" The two men grasped each other's hands. "And he's no fool, either," continued Demorest. "When we metSteptoe on the road, without a word from me, he closed upalongside, with his hand on the lock of his rifle. And I hadn't theheart to praise him or laugh it off." Nevertheless they were both silent as the object of theircriticism bounded down the trail towards them. He had seen thefuneral pyre. It was awfully sad, it was awfully lovely, but therewas something grand in it! Who could have thought Stacy could be sopoetic? But he wanted to tell them something else that was mightypretty. "What was it?" said Demorest. "Well," said Barker, "don't laugh! But you know that JackHamlin? Well, boys, he's been hovering around us on his mustang,keeping us and that pack-mule in sight ever since we left.Sometimes he's on a side trail off to the right, sometimes off tothe left, but always at the same distance. I didn't like to tellyou, boys, for I thought you'd laugh at me; but I think, you know,he's taken a sort of shine to us since he dropped in last night.And I fancy, you see, he's sort of hanging round to see that we getalong all right. I'd have pointed him out before only I reckonedyou and Stacy would say he was making up to us for our money." "And we'd have been wrong, Barker boy," said Stacy, with aheartiness that surprised Demorest, "for I reckon your instinct'sthe right one." "There he is now," said the gratified Barker, "just abreast ofus on the cut-off. He started just after we did, and he's got ahorse that could have brought him into Boomville hours ago. It'sjust his kindness." He pointed to a distant fringe of buckeye from which Jack Hamlinhad just emerged. Although evidently holding in a powerful mustang,nothing could be more unconscious and utterly indifferent than hisattitude. He did not seem to know of the proximity of any othertraveler, and to care less. His handsome head was slightly thrownback, as if he was caroling after his usual fashion, but thedistance was too great to make his melody audible to them, or toallow Barker's shout of invitation to reach him. Suddenly helowered his tightened rein, the mustang sprang forward, and with aflash of silver spurs and bridle fripperies he had disappeared. Butas the trail he was pursuing crossed theirs a mile beyond, itseemed quite possible that they should again meet him. They were now fairly into the Boomville valley, and wereentering a narrow arroyo bordered with dusky willows whicheffectually excluded the view on either side. It was the bed of amountain torrent that in winter descended the hillside over thetrail by which they had just come, but was now sunk into thethirsty plain between banks that varied from two to five feet inheight. The muleteer had advanced into the narrow channel when hesuddenly cast a hurried glance behind him, uttered a "Madre deDios!" and backed his mule and his precious freight against thebank. The sound of hoofs on the trail in their rear had caught hisquicker ear, and as the three partners turned they beheld threehorsemen thundering down the hill towards them. They wereapparently Mexican vaqueros of the usual common swarthy type, theirfaces made still darker by the black silk handkerchief tied roundtheir heads under their stiff sombreros. Either they were unable orunwilling to restrain their horses in their headlong speed, and acollision in that narrow passage was imminent, but suddenly, beforereaching its entrance, they diverged with a volley of oaths, anddashing along the left bank of the arroyo, disappeared in theintervening willows. Divided between relief at their escape andindignation at what seemed to be a drunken, feast-day freak ofthese roystering vaqueros, the little party re-formed, when a cryfrom Barker arrested them. He had just perceived a horsemanmotionless in the arroyo who, although unnoticed by them, hadevidently been seen by the Mexicans. He had apparently leaped intoit from the bank, and had halted as if to witness this singularincident. As the clatter of the vaqueros' hoofs died away helightly leaped the bank again and disappeared. But in that singleglimpse of him they recognized Jack Hamlin. When they reached thespot where he had halted, they could see that he must haveapproached it from the trail where they had previously seen him,but which they now found crossed it at right angles. Barker wasright. He had really kept them at easy distance the whole length ofthe journey. But they were now reaching its end. When they issued at lastfrom the arroyo they came upon the outskirts of Boomville and thegreat stage-road. Indeed, the six horses of the Pioneer coach werejust panting along the last half mile of the steep upgrade as theyapproached. They halted mechanically as the heavy vehicle swayedand creaked by them. In their ordinary working dress, sunburnt withexposure, covered with dust, and carrying their rifles still intheir hands, they, perhaps, presented a sufficiently characteristicappearance to draw a few faces--some of them pretty andintelligent--to the windows of the coach as it passed. Thesensitive Barker was quickest to feel that resentment with whichthe Pioneer usually met the wide-eyed criticism of the Easterntourist or "greenhorn," and reddened under the bold scrutiny of apair of black inquisitive eyes behind an eyeglass. That annoyancewas communicated, though in a lesser degree, even to the beardedDemorest and Stacy. It was an unexpected contact with that greatworld in which they were so soon to enter. They felt ashamed oftheir appearance, and yet ashamed of that feeling. They felt asecret satisfaction when Barker said, "They'd open their eyes widerif they knew what was in that pack-saddle," and yet they correctedhim for what they were pleased to call his "snobbishness." Theyhurried a little faster as the road became more frequented, as ifeager to shorten their distance to clean clothes andcivilization. Only Demorest began to linger in the rear. This contact with thestagecoach had again brought him face to face with his buried past.He felt his old dream revive, and occasionally turned to look backupon the dark outlines of Black Spur, under whose shadow it hadreturned so often, and wondered if he had left it there forever,and it were now slowly exhaling with the thinned and dying smoke oftheir burning cabin. His companions, knowing his silent moods, had preceded him atsome distance, when he heard the soft sound of ambling hoofs on thethick dust, and suddenly the light touch of Jack Hamlin's gauntleton his shoulder. The mustang Jack bestrode was reeking with grimeand sweat, but Jack himself was as immaculate and fresh as ever.With a delightful affectation of embarrassment and timidity hebegan flicking the side buttons of his velvet vaquero trousers withthe thong of his riata. "I reckoned to sling a word along with youbefore you went," he said, looking down, "but I'm so shy that Icouldn't do it in company. So I thought I'd get it off on you whileyou were alone." "We've seen you once or twice before, this morning," saidDemorest pleasantly, "and we were sorry you didn't join us." "I reckon I might have," said Jack gayly, "if my horse had onlymade up his mind whether he was a bird or a squirrel, and hadn'tbeen so various and promiscuous about whether he wanted to climb atree or fly. He's not a bad horse for a Mexican plug, only when hethinks there is any devilment around he wants to wade in and take ahand. However, I reckoned to see the last of you and your pile intoBoomville. And I did. When I meet three fellows like youthat are clean white all through I sort of cotton to 'em, even ifI'M a little of a brunette myself. And I've got something to giveyou." He took from a fold of his scarlet sash a small parcel neatlyfolded in white paper as fresh and spotless as himself. Holding itin his fingers, he went on: "I happened to be at Heavy Tree Hillearly this morning before sun-up. In the darkness I struck yourcabin, and I reckon--I struck somebody else! At first I thought itwas one of you chaps down on your knees praying at the rear of thecabin, but the way the fellow lit out when he smelt me coming mademe think it wasn't entirely fasting and prayer. However, I went tothe rear of the cabin, and then I reckoned some kind friend hadbeen bringing you kindlings and firewood for your early breakfast.But that didn't satisfy me, so I knelt down as he had knelt, andthen I saw--well, Mr. Demorest, I reckon I saw just what youhave seen! But even then I wasn't quite satisfied, for that manhad been grubbing round as if searching for something. So Isearched too--and I found it. I've got it here. I'm going togive it to you, for it may some day come in handy, and you won'tfind anything like it among the folks where you're going. It'ssomething unique, as those fine-art-collecting sharps in 'Friscosay--something quite matchless, unless you try to match it one dayyourself! Don't open the paper until I run on and say 'So long' toyour partners. Good- by." He grasped Demorest's hand and then dropped the little packetinto his palm, and ambled away towards Stacy and Barker. Holdingthe packet in his hand with an amused yet puzzled smile, Demorestwatched the gambler give Stacy's hand a hearty farewell shake and asupplementary slap on the back to the delighted Barker, and thenvanish in a flash of red sash and silver buttons. At whichDemorest, walking slowly towards his partners, opened the packet,and stood suddenly still. It contained the dried and bloodlesssecond finger of a human hand cut off at the first joint! For an instant he held it at arm's length, as if about to castit away. Then he grimly replaced it in the paper, put it carefullyin his pocket, and silently walked after his companions. Chapter I A strong southwester was beating against the windows and doorsof Stacy's Bank in San Francisco, and spreading a film of rainbetween the regular splendors of its mahogany counters and sprucelydressed clerks and the usual passing pedestrian. For Stacy's newbanking- house had long since received the epithet of "palatial"from an enthusiastic local press fresh from the "opening" luncheonin its richly decorated directors' rooms, and it was said that oncea homely would-be depositor from One Horse Gulch was so cowed byits magnificence that his heart failed him at the last moment, andmumbling an apology to the elegant receiving teller, fled with hisgreasy chamois pouch of gold-dust to deposit his treasure in thedingy Mint around the corner. Perhaps there was something of thisfeeling, mingled with a certain simple-minded fascination, in thehesitation of a stranger of a higher class who entered the bankthat rainy morning and finally tendered his card to the importantnegro messenger. The card preceded him through noiselessly swinging doors andacross heavily carpeted passages until it reached the inner core ofMr. James Stacy's private offices, and was respectfully laid beforehim. He was not alone. At his side, in an attitude of polite andstudied expectancy, stood a correct-looking young man, for whom Mr.Stacy was evidently writing a memorandum. The stranger glancedfurtively at the card with a curiosity hardly in keeping with hissuggested good breeding; but Stacy did not look at it until he hadfinished his memorandum. "There," he said, with business decision, "you can tell yourpeople that if we carry their new debentures over our limit we willexpect a larger margin. Ditches are not what they were three yearsago when miners were willing to waste their money over your rates.They don't gamble that way any more, and your company oughtto know it, and not gamble themselves over that prospect." Hehanded the paper to the stranger, who bowed over it with studiedpoliteness, and backed towards the door. Stacy took up the waitingcard, read it, said to the messenger, "Show him in," and in thesame breath turned to his guest: "I say, Van Loo, it's GeorgeBarker! You know him." "Yes," said Van Loo, with a polite hesitation as he halted atthe door. "He was--I think--er--in your employ at Heavy TreeHill." "Nonsense! He was my partner. And you must have known him sinceat Boomville. Come! He got forty shares of Ditch stock--throughyou--at 110, which were worth about 80! Somebody must havemade money enough by it to remember him." "I was only speaking of him socially," said Van Loo, with adeprecating smile. "You know he married a young woman--the hotel-keeper's daughter, who used to wait at the table--and after mymother and sister came out to keep house for me at Boomville it wasquite impossible for me to see much of him, for he seldom went outwithout his wife, you know." "Yes," said Stacy dryly, "I think you didn't like his marriage.But I'm glad your disinclination to see him isn't on account ofthat deal in stocks." "Oh no," said Van Loo. "Good-by." But, unfortunately, in the next passage he came upon Barker, whowith a cry of unfeigned pleasure, none the less sincere that he wasfeeling a little alien in these impressive surroundings, recognizedhim. Nothing could exceed Van Loo's protest of delight at themeeting; nothing his equal desolation at the fact that he washastening to another engagement. "But your old partner," he added,with a smile, "is waiting for you; he has just received your card,and I should be only keeping you from him. So glad to see you;you're looking so well. Good-by! Good-by!" Reassured, Barker no longer hesitated, but dashed with his oldimpetuousness into his former partner's room. Stacy, already deeplyabsorbed in other business, was sitting with his back towards him,and Barker's arms were actually encircling his neck before theastonished and halfangry man looked up. But when his eyes met thelaughing gray ones of Barker above him he gently disengaged himselfwith a quick return of the caress, rose, shut the door of an inneroffice, and returning pushed Barker into an armchair in quite theold suppressive fashion of former days. Yes; it was the same Stacythat Barker looked at, albeit his brown beard was now closelycropped around his determined mouth and jaw in a kind of gravedecorum, and his energetic limbs already attuned to the rigor ofclothes of fashionable cut and still more rigorous sombreness ofcolor. "Barker boy," he began, with the familiar twinkle in his keeneyes which the younger partner remembered, "I don't encourage stagdancing among my young men during bank hours, and you'll please toremember that we are not on Heavy Tree Hill"-"Where," broke in Barker enthusiastically, "we were onlyoverlooked by the Black Spur Range and the Sierran snow-line; wherethe nearest voice that came to you was quarter of a mile away asthe crow flies and nearly a mile by the trail." "And was generally an oath!" said Stacy. "But you're in SanFrancisco now. Where are you stopping?" He took up a penciland held it over a memorandum pad awaitingly. "At the Brook House. It's"-"Hold on! 'Brook House,'" Stacy repeated as he jotted it down."And for how long?" "Oh, a day or two. You see, Kitty"-Stacy checked him with a movement of his pencil in the air, andthen wrote down, "'Day or two.' Wife with you?" "Yes; and oh, Stacy, our boy! Ah!" he went on, with a laugh,knocking aside the remonstrating pencil, "you must listen! He'sjust the sweetest, knowingest little chap living. Do you know whatwe're going to christen him? Well, he'll be Stacy Demorest Barker.Good names, aren't they? And then it perpetuates the dear oldfriendship." Stacy picked up the pencil again, wrote "Wife and child S. D.B.," and leaned back in his chair. "Now, Barker," he said briefly,"I'm coming to dine with you tonight at 7.30 sharp. Thenwe'll talk Heavy Tree Hill, wife, baby, and S. D. B. But here I'mall for business. Have you any with me?" Barker, who was easily amused, had extracted a certainentertainment out of Stacy's memorandum, but he straightenedhimself with a look of eager confidence and said, "Certainly;that's just what it is-- business. Lord! Stacy, I'm allbusiness now. I'm in everything. And I bank with you, thoughperhaps you don't know it; it's in your Branch at Marysville. Ididn't want to say anything about it to you before. But Lord! youdon't suppose that I'd bank anywhere else while you are in thebusiness--checks, dividends, and all that; but in this matter Ifelt you knew, old chap. I didn't want to talk to a banker nor to abank, but to Jim Stacy, my old partner." "Barker," said Stacy curtly, "how much money are you shortof?" At this direct question Barker's always quick color rose, but,with an equally quick smile, he said, "I don't know yet that I'mshort at all." "But I do!" "Look here, Jim: why, I'm just overloaded with shares andstocks," said Barker, smiling. "Not one of which you could realize on without sacrifice.Barker, three years ago you had three hundred thousand dollars putto your account at San Francisco." "Yes," said Barker, with a quiet reminiscent laugh. "I rememberI wanted to draw it out in one check to see how it would look." "And you've drawn out all in three years, and it looks d----dbad." "How did you know it?" asked Barker, his face beaming only withadmiration of his companion's omniscience. "How did I know it?" retorted Stacy. "I know you, and Iknow the kind of people who have unloaded to you." "Come, Stacy," said Barker, "I've only invested in shares andstocks like everybody else, and then only on the best advice Icould get: like Van Loo's, for instance,--that man who was herejust now, the new manager of the Empire Ditch Company; andCarter's, my own Kitty's father. And when I was offered fiftythousand Wide West Extensions, and was hesitating over it, he toldme you were in it too--and that was enough for me to buyit." "Yes, but we didn't go into it at his figures." "No," said Barker, with an eager smile, "but you sold athis figures, for I knew that when I found that you, my oldpartner, was in it; don't you see, I preferred to buy it throughyour bank, and did at 110. Of course, you wouldn't have sold it atthat figure if it wasn't worth it then, and neither I nor you areto blame if it dropped the next week to 60, don't you see?" Stacy's eyes hardened for a moment as he looked keenly into hisformer partner's bright gray ones, but there was no trace of ironyin Barker's. On the contrary, a slight shade of sadness came overthem. "No," he said reflectively, "I don't think I've ever beenfoolish or followed out my own ideas, except once, and thatwas extravagant, I admit. That was my idea of building a kind ofrefuge, you know, on the site of our old cabin, where poor minersand played-out prospectors waiting for a strike could stay withoutpaying anything. Well, I sunk twenty thousand dollars in that, andmight have lost more, only Carter--Kitty's father--persuaded me--he's an awful clever old fellow--into turning it into a kind ofbranch hotel of Boomville, while using it as a hotel to take poorchaps who couldn't pay, at half prices, or quarter prices,privately, don't you see, so a s to spare theirpride,--awfully pretty, wasn't it?--and make the hotel profit byit." "Well?" said Stacy as Barker paused. "They didn't come," said Barker. "But," he added eagerly, "it shows that things were better thanI had imagined. Only the others did not come, either." "And you lost your twenty thousand dollars," said Stacycurtly. "Fifty thousand," said Barker, "for of course it had tobe a larger hotel than the other. And I think that Carter wouldn'thave gone into it except to save me from losing money." "And yet made you lose fifty thousand instead of twenty. For Idon't suppose he advanced anything." "He gave his time and experience," said Barker simply. "I don't think it worth thirty thousand dollars," said Stacydryly. "But all this doesn't tell me what your business is with meto-day." "No," said Barker, brightening up, "but it is business, youknow. Something in the old style--as between partner andpartner--and that's why I came to you, and not to the'banker.' And it all comes out of something that Demorest once toldus; so you see it's all us three again! Well, you know, of course,that the Excelsior Ditch Company have abandoned the Bar and HeavyTree Hill. It didn't pay." "Yes; nor does the company pay any dividends now. You ought toknow, with fifty thousand of their stock on your hands." Barker laughed. "But listen. I found that I could buy up theirwhole plant and all the ditching along the Black Spur Range for tenthousand dollars." "And Great Scott! you don't think of taking up their business?"said Stacy, aghast. Barker laughed more heartily. "No. Not their business. But Iremember that once Demorest told us, in the dear old days, that itcost nearly as much to make a water ditch as a railroad, in the wayof surveying and engineering and levels, you know. And here's theplant for a railroad. Don't you see?" "But a railroad from Black Spur to Heavy Tree Hill--what's thegood of that?" "Why, Black Spur will be in the line of the new Divide Railroadthey're trying to get a bill for in the legislature." "An infamous piece of wildcat jobbing that will never pass,"said Stacy decisively. "They said because it was that, it would pass," saidBarker simply. "They say that Watson's Bank is in it, and is boundto get it through. And as that is a rival bank of yours, don't yousee, I thought that if we could get something real good orvaluable out of it,--something that would do the Black Spurgood,--it would be all right." "And was your business to consult me about it?" said Stacybluntly. "No," said Barker, "it's too late to consult you now, though Iwish I had. I've given my word to take it, and I can't back out.But I haven't the ten thousand dollars, and I came to you." Stacy slowly settled himself back in his chair, and put bothhands in his pockets. "Not a cent, Barker, not a cent." "I'm not asking it of the bank," said Barker, with asmile, "for I could have gone to the bank for it. But as this wassomething between us, I am asking you, Stacy, as my oldpartner." "And I am answering you, Barker, as your old partner, but alsoas the partner of a hundred other men, who have even a greaterright to ask me. And my answer is, not a cent!" Barker looked at him with a pale, astonished face and slightlyparted lips. Stacy rose, thrust his hands deeper in his pockets,and standing before him went on:-"Now look here! It's time you should understand me and yourself.Three years ago, when our partnership was dissolved by accident, ormutual consent, we will say, we started afresh, each on our ownhook. Through foolishness and bad advice you have in those threeyears hopelessly involved yourself as you never would have done hadwe been partners, and yet in your difficulty you ask me and my newpartners to help you out of a difficulty in which they have noconcern." "Your new partners?" stammered Barker. "Yes, my new partners; for every man who has a share, or adeposit, or an interest, or a dollar in this bank is mypartner--even you, with your securities at the Branch, areone; and you may say that in this I am protecting youagainst yourself." "But you have money--you have private means." "None to speculate with as you wish me to--on account of myposition; none to give away foolishly as you expect me to--onaccount of precedent and example. I am a soulless machine takingcare of capital intrusted to me and my brains, but decidedlynot to my heart nor my sentiment. So my answer is, not acent!" Barker's face had changed; his color had come back, but with anolder expression. Presently, however, his beaming smile returned,with the additional suggestion of an affectionate toleration whichpuzzled Stacy. "I believe you're right, old chap," he said, extending his handto the banker, "and I wish I had talked to you before. But it's toolate now, and I've given my word." "Your word!" said Stacy. "Have you no writtenagreement?" "No. My word was accepted." He blushed slightly as if consciousof a great weakness. "But that isn't legal nor business. And you couldn't even holdthe Ditch Company to it if they chose to back out." "But I don't think they will," said Barker simply. "And you seemy word wasn't given entirely to them. I bought the thingthrough my wife's cousin, Henry Spring, a broker, and he makessomething by it, from the company, on commission. And I can't goback on him. What did you say?" Stacy had only groaned through his set teeth. "Nothing," he saidbriefly, "except that I'm coming, as I said before, to dine withyou to-night; but no more business. I've enough of that withothers, and there are some waiting for me in the outer officenow." Barker rose at once, but with the same affectionate smile andtender gravity of countenance, and laid his hand caressingly onStacy's shoulder. "It's like you to give up so much of your time tome and my foolishness and be so frank with me. And I know it'smighty rough on you to have to be a mere machine instead of JimStacy. Don't you bother about me. I'll sell some of my Wide WestExtension and pull the thing through myself. It's all right, butI'm sorry for you, old chap." He glanced around the room at thewalls and rich paneling, and added, "I suppose that's what you haveto pay for all this sort of thing?" Before Stacy could reply, a waiting visitor was announced forthe second time, and Barker, with another hand-shake and areassuring smile to his old partner, passed into the hall, as ifthe onus of any infelicity in the interview was upon himself alone.But Stacy did not seem to be in a particularly accessible mood tothe new caller, who in his turn appeared to be slightly irritatedby having been kept waiting over some irksome business. "You don'tseem to follow me," he said to Stacy after reciting his businessperplexity. "Can't you suggest something?" "Well, why don't you get hold of one of your board ofdirectors?" said Stacy abstractedly. "There's Captain Drummond; youand he are old friends. You were comrades in the Mexican War,weren't you?" "That be d----d!" said his visitor bitterly. "All his interestsare the other way, and in a trade of this kind, you know, Stacy,that a man would sacrifice his own brother. Do you suppose thathe'd let up on a sure thing that he's got just because he and Ifought side by side at Cerro Gordo? Come! what are you giving us?You're the last man I ever expected to hear that kind of flapdoodlefrom. If it's because your bank has got some other interest and youcan't advise me, why don't you say so?" Nevertheless, in spite ofStacy's abrupt disclaimer, he left a few minutes later, halfconvinced that Stacy's lukewarmness was due to some adverseinfluence. Other callers were almost as quickly disposed of, and atthe end of an hour Stacy found himself again alone. But not apparently in a very satisfied mood. After a few momentsof purely mechanical memoranda-making, he rose abruptly and openeda small drawer in a cabinet, from which he took a letter still inits envelope. It bore a foreign postmark. Glancing over it hastily,his eyes at last became fixed on a concluding paragraph. "I hope,"wrote his correspondent, "that even in the rush of your bigbusiness you will sometimes look after Barker. Not that I think thedear old chap will ever go wrong--indeed, I often wish I was ascertain of myself as of him and his insight; but I am afraid wewere more inclined to be merely amused and tolerant of hiswonderful trust and simplicity than to really understand it for hisown good and ours. I know you did not like his marriage, and wereinclined to believe he was the victim of a rather unscrupulousfather and a foolish, unequal girl; but are you satisfied that hewould have been the happier without it, or lived his perfect lifeunder other and what you may think wiser conditions? If hewrote the poetry that he lives everybody would thinkhim wonderful; for being what he is we never give him sufficientcredit." Stacy smiled grimly, and penciled on his memorandum, "Hewants it to the amount of ten thousand dollars." "Anyhow,"continued the writer, "look after him, Jim, for his sake, yoursake, and the sake of-- Phil Demorest." Stacy put the letter back in its envelope, and tossing it grimlyaside went on with his calculations. Presently he stopped, restoredthe letter to his cabinet, and rang a bell on his table. "Send Mr.North here," he said to the negro messenger. In a few moments hischief book-keeper appeared in the doorway. "Turn to the Branch ledger and bring me a statement of Mr.George Barker's account." "He was here a moment ago," said North, essaying a confidentiallook towards his chief. "I know it," said Stacy coolly, without looking up. "He's been running a good deal on wildcat lately," suggestedNorth. "I asked for his account, and not your opinion of it," saidStacy shortly. The subordinate withdrew somewhat abashed but still curious, andreturned presently with a ledger which he laid before his chief.Stacy ran his eyes over the list of Barker's securities; it seemedto him that all the wildest schemes of the past year stared him inthe face. His finger, however, stopped on the Wide West Extension."Mr. Barker will be wanting to sell some of this stock. What is itquoted at now?" "Sixty." "But I would prefer that Mr. Barker should not offer in the openmarket at present. Give him seventy for it--private sale; that willbe ten thousand dollars paid to his credit. Advise the Branch ofthis at once, and to keep the transaction quiet." "Yes, sir," responded the clerk as he moved towards the door.But he hesitated, and with another essay at confidence saidinsinuatingly, "I always thought, sir, that Wide West wouldrecover." Stacy, perhaps not displeased to find what had evidently passedin his subordinate's mind, looked at him and said dryly, "Then Iwould advise you also to keep that opinion to yourself." But,clever as he was, he had not anticipated the result. Mr. North,though a trusted employee, was human. On arriving in the outeroffice he beckoned to one of the lounging brokers, and in a lowvoice said, "I'll take two shares of Wide West, if you can get itcheap." The broker's face became alert and eager. "Yes, but I say, isanything up?" "I'm not here to give the business of the bank away," retortedNorth severely; "take the order or leave it." The man hurried away. Having thus vindicated his humanity byalso passing the snub he had received from Stacy to an inferior, heturned away to carry out his master's instructions, yet secure inthe belief that he had profited by his superior discernment of thereal reason of that master's singular conduct. But when he returnedto the private room, in hopes of further revelations, Mr. Stacy wascloseted with another financial magnate, and had apparentlydivested his mind of the whole affair. Chapter II. When George Barker returned to the outer ward of the financialstronghold he had penetrated, with its curving sweep of counters,brass railings, and wirework screens defended by the spruce clerksbehind them, he was again impressed with the position of the man hehad just quitted, and for a moment hesitated, with an inclinationto go back. It was with no idea of making a further appeal to hisold comrade, but--what would have been odd in any other nature buthis--he was affected by a sense that he might have beenunfair and selfish in his manner to the man panoplied by thesedefenses, and who was in a measure forced to be a part of them. Hewould like to have returned and condoled with him. The clerks, whowere heartlessly familiar with the anxious bearing of the men whosought interviews with their chief, both before and after, smiledwith the whispered conviction that the fresh and ingenuous youngstranger had been "chucked" like others until they met his kindly,tolerant, and even superior eyes, and were puzzled. MeanwhileBarker, who had that sublime, natural quality of abstraction oversmall impertinences which is more exasperating than studiedindifference, after his brief hesitation passed out unconcernedlythrough the swinging mahogany doors into the blowy street. Here thewind and rain revived him; the bank and its curt refusal wereforgotten; he walked onward with only a smiling memory of hispartner as in the old days. He remembered how Stacy had burned downtheir old cabin rather than have it fall into sordid or unworthyhands--this Stacy who was now condemned to sink his impulses andbecome a mere machine. He had never known Stacy's real motive forthat act,-- both Demorest and Stacy had kept their knowledge of theattempted robbery from their younger partner,--it always seemed tohim to be a precious revelation of Stacy's inner nature. Facing thewind and rain, he recalled how Stacy, though never so enthusiasticabout his marriage as Demorest, had taken up Van Loo sharply forsome foolish sneer about his own youthfulness. He wasaffectionately tolerant of even Stacy's dislike to his wife'srelations, for Stacy did not know them as he did. Indeed, Barker,whose own father and mother had died in his infancy, had acceptedhis wife's relations with a loving trust and confidence that wassupreme, from the fact that he had never known any other. At last he reached his hotel. It was a new one, the latestcreation of a feverish progress in hotelbuilding which had coveredfive years and as many squares with large showy erections, utterlybeyond the needs of the community, yet each superior in size andadornment to its predecessor. It struck him as being the oneevidence of an abiding faith in the future of the metropolis thathe had seen in nothing else. As he entered its frescoed hall thatafternoon he was suddenly reminded, by its challenging opulency, ofthe bank he had just quitted, without knowing that the bank hadreally furnished its capital and its original design. The gildedbar-rooms, flashing with mirrors and cut glass; the saloons, withtheir desert expanse of Turkey carpet and oasis of clustered divansand gilded tables; the great dining-room, with porphyry columns,and walls and ceilings shining with allegory--all these thingswhich had attracted his youthful wonder without distracting hiscorrect simplicity of taste he now began to comprehend. It was thebank's money "at work." In the clatter of dishes in the dining-room he even seemed to hear again the chinking of coin. It was a short cut to his apartments to pass through a smallerpublic sitting-room popularly known as "Flirtation Camp," whereeight or ten couples generally found refuge on chairs and setteesby the windows, half concealed by heavy curtains. But the occupantswere by no means youthful spinsters or bachelors; they weregenerally married women, guests of the hotel, receiving otherpeople's husbands whose wives were "in the States," or responsiblemiddle-aged leaders of the town. In the elaborate toilettes of thewomen, as compared with the less formal business suits of the men,there was an odd mingling of the social attitude with perhaps moremysterious confidences. The idle gossip about them had neveraffected Barker; rather he had that innate respect for the secretsof others which is as inseparable from simplicity as it is fromhigh breeding, and he scarcely glanced at the different couples inhis progress through the room. He did not even notice a ratherstriking and handsome woman, who, surrounded by two or threeadmirers, yet looked up at Barker as he passed with self-consciouslids as if seeking a return of her glance. But he moved onabstractedly, and only stopped when he suddenly saw the familiarskirt of his wife at a further window, and halted before it. "Oh, it's you," said Mrs. Barker, with a half-nervous,half- impatient laugh. "Why, I thought you'd certainly stay halfthe afternoon with your old partner, considering that you haven'tmet for three years." There was no doubt she had thought so; there was equallyno doubt that the conversation she was carrying on with hercompanion--a good-looking, portly business man--was effectuallyinterrupted. But Barker did not notice it. "Captain Heath, myhusband," she went on, carelessly rising and smoothing her skirts.The captain, who had risen too, bowed vaguely at the introduction,but Barker extended his hand frankly. "I found Stacy busy," he saidin answer to his wife, "but he is coming to dine with usto-night." "If you mean Jim Stacy, the banker," said Captain Heath,brightening into greater ease, "he's the busiest man in California.I've seen men standing in a queue outside his door as in the olddays at the post-office. And he only gives you five minutes and noextension. So you and he were partners once?" he said, lookingcuriously at the still youthful Barker. But it was Mrs. Barker who answered, "Oh yes! and always suchgood friends. I was awfully jealous of him." Nevertheless, she didnot respond to the affectionate protest in Barker's eyes nor to thelaugh of Captain Heath, but glanced indifferently around the roomas if to leave further conversation to the two men. It was possiblethat she was beginning to feel that Captain Heath was as de tropnow as her husband had been a moment before. Standing there,however, between them both, idly tracing a pattern on the carpetwith the toe of her slipper, she looked prettier than she had everlooked as Kitty Carter. Her slight figure was more fully developed.That artificial severity covering a natural virgin coyness withwhich she used to wait at table in her father's hotel at Boomvillehad gone, and was replaced by a satisfied consciousness of herpower to please. Her glance was freer, but not as frank as in thosedays. Her dress was undoubtedly richer and more stylish; yetBarker's loyal heart often reverted fondly to the chintz gown,coquettishly frilled apron, and spotless cuffs and collar in whichshe had handed him his coffee with a faint color that left his ownface crimson. Captain Heath's tact being equal to her indifference, he hadexcused himself, although he was becoming interested in thisyouthful husband. But Mrs. Barker, after having asserted herhusband's distinction as the equal friend of the millionaire, wasby no means willing that the captain should be further interestedin Barker for himself alone, and did not urge him to stay. As hedeparted she turned to her husband, and, indicating the group hehad passed the moment before, said:-"That horrid woman has been staring at us all the time. I don'tsee what you see in her to admire." Poor Barker's admiration had been limited to a few words ofcivility in the enforced contact of that huge caravansary and inhis quiet, youthful recognition of her striking personality. But hewas just then too preoccupied with his interview with Stacy toreply, and perhaps he did not quite understand his wife. It was oddhow many things he did not quite understand now about Kitty, butthat he knew must be his fault. But Mrs. Barker apparentlydid not require, after the fashion of her sex, a reply. For thenext moment, as they moved towards their rooms, she saidimpatiently, "Well, you don't tell what Stacy said. Did you get themoney?" I grieve to say that this soul of truth and frankness lied--onlyto his wife. Perhaps he considered it only lying to himself,a thing of which he was at times miserably conscious. "It wasn'tnecessary, dear," he said; "he advised me to sell my securities inthe bank; and if you only knew how dreadfully busy he is." Mrs. Barker curled her pretty lip. "It doesn't take very long tolend ten thousand dollars!" she said. "But that's what I alwaystell you. You have about made me sick by singing the praises ofthose wonderful partners of yours, and here you ask a favor of oneof them and he tells you to sell your securities! And you know, andhe knows, they're worth next to nothing." "You don't understand, dear"--began Barker. "I understand that you've given your word to poor Harry," saidMrs. Barker in pretty indignation, "who's responsible for the Ditchpurchase." "And I shall keep it. I always do," said Barker very quietly,but with that same singular expression of face that had puzzledStacy. But Mrs. Barker, who, perhaps, knew her husband better, saidin an altered voice:-"But how can you, dear?" "If I'm short a thousand or two I'll ask your father." Mrs. Barker was silent. "Father's so very much harried now,George. Why don't you simply throw the whole thing up?" "But I've given my word to your cousin Henry." "Yes, but only your word. There was no written agreement.And you couldn't even hold him to it." Barker opened his frank eyes in astonishment. Her own cousin,too! And they were Stacy's very words! "Besides," added Mrs. Barker audaciously, "he could get rid ofit elsewhere. He had another offer, but he thought yours the best.So don't be silly." By this time they had reached their rooms. Barker, apparentlydismissing the subject from his mind with characteristic buoyancy,turned into the bedroom and walked smilingly towards a small cribwhich stood in the corner. "Why, he's gone!" he said in somedismay. "Well," said Mrs. Barker a little impatiently, "you didn'texpect me to take him into the public parlor, where I was seeingvisitors, did you? I sent him out with the nurse into the lowerhall to play with the other children." A shade momentarily passed over Barker's face. He always lookedforward to meeting the child when he came back. He had a belief,based on no grounds whatever, that the little creature understoodhim. And he had a father's doubt of the wholesomeness of otherpeople's children who were born into the world indiscriminately andnot under the exceptional conditions of his own. "I'll go and fetchhim," he said. "You haven't told me anything about your interview; what you didand what your good friend Stacy said," said Mrs. Barker, droppinglanguidly into a chair. "And really if you are simply running awayagain after that child, I might just as well have asked CaptainHeath to stay longer." "Oh, as to Stacy," said Barker, dropping beside her and takingher hand; "well, dear, he was awfully busy, you know, and shut upin the innermost office like the agate in one of the Japanese nestsof boxes. But," he continued, brightening up, "just the same dearold Jim Stacy of Heavy Tree Hill, when I first knew you. Lord!dear, how it all came back to me! That day I proposed to you in thebelief that I was unexpectedly rich and even bought a claim for theboys on the strength of it, and how I came back to them to findthat they had made a big strike on the very claim. Lord! I rememberhow I was so afraid to tell them about you--and how they guessedit--that dear old Stacy one of the first." "Yes," said Mrs. Barker, "and I hope your friend Stacyremembered that but for me, when you found out that you werenot rich, you'd have given up the claim, but that I really deceivedmy own father to make you keep it. I've often worried over that,George," she said pensively, turning a diamond bracelet around herpretty wrist, "although I never said anything about it." "But, Kitty darling," said Barker, grasping his wife's hand, "Igave my note for it; you know you said that was bargain enough, andI had better wait until the note was due, and until I found Icouldn't pay, before I gave up the claim. It was very clever ofyou, and the boys all said so, too. But you never deceived yourfather, dear," he said, looking at her gravely, "for I should havetold him everything." "Of course, if you look at it in that way," said his wifelanguidly, "it's nothing; only I think it ought to be rememberedwhen people go about saying papa ruined you with his hotelschemes." "Who dares say that?" said Barker indignantly. "Well, if they don't say it they look it," said Mrs.Barker, with a toss of her pretty head, "and I believe that's atthe bottom of Stacy's refusal." "But he never said a word, Kitty," said Barker, flushing. "There, don't excite yourself, George," said Mrs. Barkerresignedly, "but go for the baby. I know you're dying to go, and Isuppose it's time Norah brought it upstairs." At any other time Barker would have lingered with explanations,but just then a deeper sense than usual of some misunderstandingmade him anxious to shorten this domestic colloquy. He rose,pressed his wife's hand, and went out. But yet he was not entirelysatisfied with himself for leaving her. "I suppose it isn't rightmy going off as soon as I come in," he murmured reproachfully tohimself, "but I think she wants the baby back as much as I; only,womanlike, she didn't care to let me know it." He reached the lower hall, which he knew was a favoritepromenade for the nurses who were gathered at the farther end,where a large window looked upon Montgomery Street. But Norah, theIrish nurse, was not among them; he passed through severalcorridors in his search, but in vain. At last, worried and a littleanxious, he turned to regain his rooms through the long saloonwhere he had found his wife previously. It was deserted now; thelast caller had left--even frivolity had its prescribed limits. Hewas consequently startled by a gentle murmur from one of theheavily curtained window recesses. It was a woman's voice--low,sweet, caressing, and filled with an almost pathetic tenderness.And it was followed by a distinct gurgling satisfied crow. Barker turned instantly in that direction. A step brought him tothe curtain, where a singular spectacle presented itself. Seated on a lounge, completely absorbed and possessed by hertreasure, was the "horrid woman" whom his wife had indicated only alittle while ago, holding a baby--Kitty's sacred baby--in herwanton lap! The child was feebly grasping the end of the slenderjeweled necklace which the woman held temptingly dangling from athin white jeweled finger above it. But its eyes were beaming withan intense delight, as if trying to respond to the deep,concentrated love in the handsome face that was bent above it. At the sudden intrusion of Barker she looked up. There was afaint rise in her color, but no loss of sell-possession. "Please don't scold the nurse," she said, "nor say anything toMrs. Barker. It is all my fault. I thought that both the nurse andchild looked dreadfully bored with each other, and I borrowed thelittle fellow for a while to try and amuse him. At least I haven'tmade him cry, have I, dear?" The last epithet, it is needless tosay, was addressed to the little creature in her lap, but in itstender modulation it touched the father's quick sympathies as if hehad shared it with the child. "You see," she said softly,disengaging the baby fingers from her necklace, "that oursex is not the only one tempted by jewelry and glitter." Barker hesitated; the Madonna-like devotion of a moment ago wasgone; it was only the woman of the world who laughingly looked upat him. Nevertheless he was touched. "Have you--ever-had a child,Mrs. Horncastle?" he asked gently and hesitatingly. He had a vaguerecollection that she passed for a widow, and in his simple eyesall women were virgins or married saints. "No," she said abruptly. Then she added with a laugh, "Orperhaps I should not admire them so much. I suppose it's the samefeeling bachelors have for other people's wives. But I know you'redying to take that boy from me. Take him, then, and don't beashamed to carry him yourself just because I'm here; you know youwould delight to do it if I weren't." Barker bent over the silken lap in which the child wascomfortably nestling, and in that attitude had a faintconsciousness that Mrs. Horncastle was mischievously breathing intohis curls a silent laugh. Barker lifted his firstborn with proudskillfulness, but that sagacious infant evidently knew when he wascomfortable, and in a paroxysm of objection caught his father'scurls with one fist, while with the other he grasped Mrs.Horncastle's brown braids and brought their heads into contact.Upon which humorous situation Norah, the nurse, entered. "It's all right, Norah," said Mrs. Horncastle, laughing, as shedisengaged herself from the linking child. "Mr. Barker has claimedthe baby, and has agreed to forgive you and me and say nothing toMrs. Barker." Norah, with the inscrutable criticism of her sex onher sex, thought it extremely probable, and halted withexasperating discretion. "There," continued Mrs. Horncastle,playfully evading the child's further advances, "go with papa,that's a dear. Mr. Barker prefers to carry him back, Norah." "But," said the ingenuous and persistent Barker, still lingeringin hopes of recalling the woman's previous expression, "youdo love children, and you think him a bright little chap forhis age?" "Yes," said Mrs. Horncastle, putting back her loosened braid,"so round and fat and soft. And such a discriminating eye forjewelry. Really you ought to get a necklace like mine for Mrs.Barker--it would please both, you know." She moved slowly away, theunited efforts of Norah and Barker scarcely sufficing to restrainthe struggling child from leaping after her as she turned at thedoor and blew him a kiss. When Barker regained his room he found that Mrs. Barker haddismissed Stacy from her mind except so far as to invoke Norah'said in laying out her smartest gown for dinner. "But why take allthis trouble, dear?" said her simple-minded husband; "we are goingto dine in a private room so that we can talk over old times all byourselves, and any dress would suit him. And, Lord, dear!" headded, with a quick brightening at the fancy, "if you could onlyjust rig yourself up in that pretty lilac gown you used to wear atBoomville--it would be too killing, and just like old times. I putit away myself in one of our trunks--I couldn't bear to leave itbehind; I know just where it is. I'll"-- But Mrs. Barker'srestraining scorn withheld him. "George Barker, if you think I am going to let you throw awayand utterly waste Mr. Stacy on us, alone, in a private roomwith closed doors--and I dare say you'd like to sit in yourdressing-gown and slippers--you are entirely mistaken. I know whatis due, not to your old partner, but to the great Mr. Stacy, thefinancier, and I know what is due from him to us! No! Wedine in the great dining- room, publicly, and, if possible, at thevery next table to those stuck-up Peterburys and their Easternfriends, including that horrid woman, which, I'm sure, ought tosatisfy you. Then you can talk as much as you like, and as loud asyou like, about old times,--and the louder and the more thebetter,--but I don't think he'll like it." "But the baby!" expostulated Barker. "Stacy's just wild to seehim--and we can't bring him down to the table--though wemight," he added, momentarily brightening. "After dinner," said Mrs. Barker severely, "we will walk throughthe big drawing-rooms, and then Mr. Stacy may come upstairsand see him in his crib; but not before. And now, George, I do wishthat to-night, for once, you would not wear a turn-downcollar, and that you would go to the barber's and have him cut yourhair and smooth out the curls. And, for Heaven's sake! let him putsome wax or gum or something on your mustache and twist itup on your cheek like Captain Heath's, for it positively droopsover your mouth like a girl's ringlet. It's quite enough for me tohear people talk of your inexperience, but really I don't want youto look as if I had run away with a pretty schoolboy. And,considering the size of that child, it's positively disgraceful.And, one thing more, George. When I'm talking to anybody, pleasedon't sit opposite to me, beaming with delight, and your mouthopen. And don't roar if by chance I say something funny.And-whatever you do--don't make eyes at me in company whenever Ihappen to allude to you, as I did before Captain Heath. It ispositively too ridiculous." Nothing could exceed the laughing good humor with which herhusband received these cautions, nor the evident sincerity withwhich he promised amendment. Equally sincere was he, though alittle more thoughtful, in his severe self-examination of hisdeficiencies, when, later, he seated himself at the window with onehand softly encompassing his child's chubby fist in the crib besidehim, and, in the instinctive fashion of all loneliness, looked outof the window. The southern trades were whipping the waves of thedistant bay and harbor into yeasty crests. Sheets of rain swept thesidewalks with the regularity of a fusillade, against which a fewpedestrians struggled with flapping waterproofs and slantingumbrellas. He could look along the deserted length of MontgomeryStreet to the heights of Telegraph Hill and its long-disusedsemaphore. It seemed lonelier to him than the mile-long sweep ofHeavy Tree Hill, writhing against the mountain wind and its aeoliansong. He had never felt so lonely there. In his rigid selfexamination he thought Kitty right in protesting against the effectof his youthfulness and optimism. Yet he was also right in beinghimself. There is an egoism in the highest simplicity; and Barker,while willing to believe in others' methods, never abandoned hisown aims. He was right in loving Kitty as he did; he knew that shewas better and more lovable than she could believe herself to be;but he was willing to believe it pained and discomposed her if heshowed it before company. He would not have her change even thispeculiarity--it was part of herself--no more than he would havechanged himself. And behind what he had conceived was her clear,practical common sense, all this time had been her belief that shehad deceived her father! Poor dear, dear Kitty! And she hadsuffered because stupid people had conceived that her father hadled him away in selfish speculations. As if he--Barker--would nothave first discovered it, and as if anybody--even dear Kittyherself--was responsible for his convictions and actions buthimself. Nevertheless, this gentle egotist was unusually serious,and when the child awoke at last, and with a fretful start andvacant eyes pushed his caressing hand away, he felt lonelier thanbefore. It was with a slight sense of humiliation, too, that he sawit stretch its hands to the mere hireling, Norah, who had nevergiven it the love that he had seen even in the frivolous Mrs.Horncastle's eyes. Later, when his wife came in, looking verypretty in her elaborate dinner toilette, he had the sameconflicting emotions. He knew that they had already passed thatphase of their married life when she no longer dressed to pleasehim, and that the dictates of fashion or the rivalry of anotherwoman she held superior to his tastes; yet he did not blame her.But he was a little surprised to see that her dress was copied fromone of Mrs. Horncastle's most striking ones, and that it did notsuit her. That which adorned the maturer woman did not agree withthe demure and slightly austere prettiness of the young wife. But Barker forgot all this when Stacy--reserved and somewhatsevere-looking in evening dress-arrived with business punctuality.He fancied that his old partner received the announcement that theywould dine in the public room with something of surprise, and hesaw him glance keenly at Kitty in her fine array, as if he hadsuspected it was her choice, and understood her motives. Indeed,the young husband had found himself somewhat nervous in regard toStacy's estimate of Kitty; he was conscious that she was notlooking and acting like the old Kitty that Stacy had known; it didnot enter his honest heart that Stacy had, perhaps, not appreciatedher then, and that her present quality might accord more with hisworldly tastes and experience. It was, therefore, with a kind oftimid delight that he saw Stacy apparently enter into her mood, andwith a still more timorous amusement to notice that he seemed tosympathize not only with her, but with her halfrallying, half-serious attitude towards his (Barker's) inexperience andsimplicity. He was glad that she had made a friend of Stacy, evenin this way. Stacy would understand, as he did, her prettywillfulness at last; she would understand what a true friend Stacywas to him. It was with unfeigned satisfaction that he followedthem in to dinner as she leaned upon his guest's arm, chattingconfidentially. He was only uneasy because her manner had a slightostentation. The entrance of the little party produced a quick sensationthroughout the dining-room. Whispers passed from table to table;all heads were turned towards the great financier as towards amagnet; a few guests even shamelessly faced round in their chairsas he passed. Mrs. Barker was pink, pretty, and voluble withexcitement; Stacy had a slight mask of reserve; Barker was the onlyone natural and unconscious. As the dinner progressed Barker found that there was littlechance for him to invoke his old partner's memories of the past. Hefound, however, that Stacy had received a letter from Demorest, andthat he was coming home from Europe. His letters were still sad;they both agreed upon that. And then for the first time that dayStacy looked intently at Barker with the look that he had oftenworn on Heavy Tree Hill. "Then you think it is the same old trouble that worries him?"said Barker in an awed and sympathetic voice. "I believe it is," said Stacy, with an equal feeling. Mrs.Barker pricked up her pretty ears; her husband's ready sympathy wasfamiliar enough; but that this cold, practical Stacy should bemoved at anything piqued her curiosity. "And you believe that he has never got over it?" continuedBarker. "He had one chance, but he threw it away," said Stacyenergetically. "If, instead of going off to Europe by himself tobrood over it, he had joined me in business, he'd have been anotherman." "But not Demorest," said Barker quickly. "What dreadful secret is this about Demorest?" said Mrs. Barkerpetulantly. "Is he ill?" Both men were silent by their old common instinct. But it wasStacy who said "No" in a way that put any further questioning at anend, and Barker was grateful and for the moment disloyal to hisKitty. It was with delight that Mrs. Barker had seen that the attentionof the next table was directed to them, and that even Mrs.Horncastle had glanced from time to time at Stacy. But she was notprepared for the evident equal effect that Mrs. Horncastle hadcreated upon Stacy. His cold face warmed, his critical eyesoftened; he asked her name. Mrs. Barker was voluble, prejudiced,and, it seemed, misinformed. "I know it all," said Stacy, with didactic emphasis. "Herhusband was as bad as they make them. When her life had becomeintolerable with him, he tried to make it shamefulwithout him by abandoning her. She could get a divorce adozen times over, but she won't." "I suppose that's what makes her so very attractive togentlemen," said Mrs. Barker ironically. "I have never seen her before," continued Stacy, with businessprecision, "although I and two other men are guardians of herproperty, and have saved it from the clutches of her husband. Theytold me she was handsome--and so she is." Pleased with the sudden human weakness of Stacy, Barker glancedat his wife for sympathy. But she was looking studiously anotherway, and the young husband's eyes, still full of his gratification,fell upon Mrs. Horncastle's. She looked away with a bright color.Whereupon the sanguine Barker--perfectly convinced that shereturned Stacy's admiration--was seized with one of his old boyishdreams of the future, and saw Stacy happily united to her, and wasonly recalled to the dinner before him by its end. Then Stacy dulypromenaded the great saloon with Mrs. Barker on his arm, visitedthe baby in her apartments, and took an easy leave. But he graspedBarker's hand before parting in quite his old fashion, and said,"Come to lunch with me at the bank any day, and we'll talk of PhilDemorest," and left Barker as happy as if the appointment were toconfer the favor he had that morning refused. But Mrs. Barker, whohad overheard, was more dubious. "You don't suppose he asks you to talk with you about Demorestand his stupid secret, do you?" she said scornfully. "Perhaps not only about that," said Barker, glad that she hadnot demanded the secret. "Well," returned Mrs. Barker as she turned away, "he might justas well lunch here and talk about her--and see her,too." Meantime Stacy had dropped into his club, only a few squaresdistant. His appearance created the same interest that it hadproduced at the hotel, but with less reserve among his fellowmembers. "Have you heard the news?" said a dozen voices. Stacy had not;he had been dining out. "That infernal swindle of a Divide Railroad has passed thelegislature." Stacy instantly remembered Barker's absurd belief in it and hisreasons. He smiled and said carelessly, "Are you quite sure it's aswindle?" There was a dead silence at the coolness of the man who had beenmost outspoken against it. "But," said a voice hesitatingly, "you know it goes nowhere andto no purpose." "But that does not prevent it, now that it's a fact, from goinganywhere and to some purpose," said Stacy, turning away. He passedinto the reading-room quietly, but in an instant turned and quicklydescended by another staircase into the hall, hurriedly put on hisovercoat, and slipping out was a moment later re-entering thehotel. Here he hastily summoned Barker, who came down, flushed andexcited. Laying his hand on Barker's arm in his old dominant way,he said:-"Don't delay a single hour, but get a written agreement for thatDitch property." Barker smiled. "But I have. Got it this afternoon." "Then you know?" ejaculated Stacy in surprise. "I only know," said Barker, coloring, "that you said I couldback out of it if it wasn't signed, and that's what Kitty said,too. And I thought it looked awfully mean for me to hold a man tothat kind of a bargain. And so--you won't be mad, old fellow, willyou?--I thought I'd put it beyond any question of my own good faithby having it in black and white." He stopped, laughing andblushing, but still earnest and sincere. "You don't think me afool, do you?" he said pathetically. Stacy smiled grimly. "I think, Barker boy, that if you go to theBranch you'll have no difficulty in paying for the Ditch property.Good-night." In a few moments he was back at the club again before any oneknew he had even left the building. As he again re-entered thesmoking- room he found the members still in eager discussion aboutthe new railroad. One was saying, "If they could get an extension,and carry the road through Heavy Tree Hill to Boomville they'd beall right." "I quite agree with you," said Stacy. Chapter III. The swaying, creaking, Boomville coach had at last reached thelevel ridge, and sank forward upon its springs with a sigh ofrelief and the slow precipitation of the red dust which had hung inclouds around it. The whole coach, inside and out, was covered withthis impalpable powder; it had poured into the windows that gapedwidely in the insufferable heat; it lay thick upon the novel readby the passenger who had for the third or fourth time during theascent made a gutter of the half-opened book and blown the dustaway in a single puff, like the smoke from a pistol. It lay infolds and creases over the yellow silk duster of the handsome womanon the back seat, and when she endeavored to shake it off envelopedher in a reddish nimbus. It grimed the handkerchiefs of others, andleft sanguinary streaks on their mopped foreheads. But as the coachhad slowly climbed the summit the sun was also sinking behind theBlack Spur Range, and with its ultimate disappearance a deliciouscoolness spread itself like a wave across the ridge. The passengersdrew a long breath, the reader closed his book, the lady lifted theedge of her veil and delicately wiped her forehead, over which afew damp tendrils of hair were clinging. Even adistinguished-looking man who had sat as impenetrable and remote asa statue in one of the front seats moved and turned his abstractedface to the window. His deeply tanned cheek and clearly cutfeatures harmonized with the red dust that lay in the curves of hisbrown linen dustcloak, and completed his resemblance to a bronzefigure. Yet it was Demorest, changed only in coloring. Now, as fiveyears ago, his abstraction had a certain quality which the mostfamiliar stranger shrank from disturbing. But in the generalrelaxation of relief the novel-reader addressed him. "Well, we ain't far from Boomville now, and it's all down-gradethe rest of the way. I reckon you'll be as glad to get a 'wash up'and a 'shake' as the rest of us." "I am afraid I won't have so early an opportunity," saidDemorest, with a faint, grave smile, "for I get off at thecross-road to Heavy Tree Hill." "Heavy Tree Hill!" repeated the other in surprise. "You ain'tgoin' to Heavy Tree Hill? Why, you might have gone there direct byrailroad, and have been there four hours ago. You know there's abranch from the Divide Railroad goes there straight to the hotel atHymettus." "Where?" said Demorest, with a puzzled smile. "Hymettus. That's the fancy name they've given to the watering-place on the slope. But I reckon you're a stranger here?" "For five years," said Demorest. "I fancy I've heard of therailroad, although I prefer to go to Heavy Tree this way. But Inever heard of a watering-place there before." "Why, it's the biggest boom of the year. Folks that are tired ofthe fogs of 'Frisco and the heat of Sacramento all go there. It'sfour thousand feet up, with a hotel like Saratoga, dancing, and aband plays every night. And it all sprang out of the DivideRailroad and a crank named George Barker, who bought up some oldDitch property and ran a branch line along its levels, and made ajunction with the Divide. You can come all the way from 'Frisco orSacramento by rail. It's a mighty big thing!" "Yet," said Demorest, with some animation, "you call the man whooriginated this success a crank. I should say he was a genius." The other passenger shook his head. "All sheer nigger luck. Hebought the Ditch plant afore there was a ghost of a chance for theDivide Railroad, just out o' pure d----d foolishness. He expectedso little from it that he hadn't even got the agreement done inwritin', and hadn't paid for it, when the Divide Railroad passedthe legislature, as it never oughter done! For, you see, theblamedest cur'ous thing about the whole affair was that this'straw' road of a Divide, all pure wildcat, was only gotten up tofrighten the Pacific Railroad sharps into buying it up. And theroad that nobody ever calculated would ever have a rail of it laidwas pushed on as soon as folks knew that the Ditch plant had beenbought up, for they thought there was a big thing behind it. Eventhe hotel was, at first, simply a kind of genteel alms-house thatthis yer Barker had built for broken-down miners!" "Nevertheless," continued Demorest, smiling, "you admit that itis a great success?" "Yes," said the other, a little irritated by some complacency inDemorest's smile, "but the success isn't his'n. Fools hasideas, and wise men profit by them, for that hotel now has JimStacy's bank behind it, and is even a kind of country branch of theBrook House in 'Frisco. Barker's out of it, I reckon. Anyhow,he couldn't run a hotel, for all that his wife--she that'sone of the big 'Frisco swells now--used to help serve in herfather's. No, sir, it's just a fool's luck, gettin' the first tasteand leavin' the rest to others." "I'm not sure that it's the worst kind of luck," returnedDemorest, with persistent gravity; "and I suppose he's satisfiedwith it." But so heterodox an opinion only irritated his antagonistthe more, especially as he noticed that the handsome woman in theback seat appeared to be interested in the conversation, and evensympathetic with Demorest. The man was in the main a good- naturedfellow and loyal to his friends; but this did not preclude anyvirulent criticism of others, and for a moment he hated thisbronze-faced stranger, and even saw blemishes in the handsomewoman's beauty. "That may be your idea of an Eastern man,"he said bluntly, "but I kin tell ye that Californy ain't run onthose lines. No, sir." Nevertheless, his curiosity got the betterof his ill humor, and as the coach at last pulled up at thecross-road for Demorest to descend he smiled affably at hisdeparting companion. "You allowed just now that you'd bin five years away. Whar moutye have bin?" "In Europe," said Demorest pleasantly. "I reckoned ez much," returned his interrogator, smilingsignificantly at the other passengers. "But in what place?" "Oh, many," said Demorest, smiling also. "But what place war ye last livin' at?" "Well," said Demorest, descending the steps, but lingering for amoment with his hand on the door of the coach, "oddly enough, nowyou remind me of it--at Hymettus!" He closed the door, and the coach rolled on. The passengerreddened, glanced indignantly after the departing figure ofDemorest and suspiciously at the others. The lady was looking fromthe window with a faint smile on her face. "He might hev given me a civil answer," muttered the passenger,and resumed his novel. When the coach drew up before Carter's Hotel the lady got down,and the curiosity of her susceptible companions was gratified tothe extent of learning from the register that her name wasHorncastle. She was shown to a private sitting-room, which chanced to be theone which had belonged to Mrs. Barker in the days of hermaidenhood, and was the sacred, impenetrable bower to which sheretired when her daily duties of waiting upon her father's guestswere over. But the breath of custom had passed through it sincethen, and but little remained of its former maiden glories, excepta few schoolgirl crayon drawings on the wall and an unrecognizableportrait of herself in oil, done by a wandering artist and stillpreserved as a receipt for his unpaid bill. Of these facts Mrs.Horncastle knew nothing; she was evidently preoccupied, and aftershe had removed her outer duster and entered the room, she glancedat the clock on the mantel-shelf and threw herself with an air ofresigned abstraction in an armchair in the corner. Her traveling-dress, although unostentatious, was tasteful and well-fitting; aslight pallor from her fatiguing journey, and, perhaps, from someabsorbing thought, made her beauty still more striking. She gaveeven an air of elegance to the faded, worn adornments of the room,which it is to be feared it never possessed in Miss Kitty'soccupancy. Again she glanced at the clock. There was a tap at thedoor. "Come in." The door opened to a Chinese servant bearing a piece of tornpaper with a name written on it in lieu of a card. Mrs. Horncastle took it, glanced at the name, and handed thepaper back. "There must be some mistake," she said. "it do not know Mr.Steptoe." "No, but you know me all the same," said a voice from thedoorway as a man entered, coolly took the Chinese servant by theelbows and thrust him into the passage, closing the door upon him."Steptoe and Horncastle are the same man, only I prefer to callmyself Steptoe here. And I see you're down on theregister as 'Horncastle.' Well, it's plucky of you, and it's not abad name to keep; you might be thankful that I have always left itto you. And if I call myself Steptoe here it's a good blind againstany of your swell friends knowing you met your husbandhere." In the half-scornful, half-resigned look she had given him whenhe entered there was no doubt that she recognized him as the manshe had come to see. He had changed little in the five years thathad elapsed since he entered the three partners' cabin at HeavyTree Hill. His short hair and beard still clung to his head likecurled moss or the crisp flocculence of Astrakhan. He was dressedmore pretentiously, but still gave the same idea of vulgarstrength. She listened to him without emotion, but said, with evena deepening of scorn in her manner:-"What new shame is this?" "Nothing new," he replied. "Only five years ago I waslivin' over on the Bar at Heavy Tree Hill under the name ofSteptoe, and folks here might recognize me. I was here when yourparticular friend, Jim Stacy, who only knew me as Steptoe, anddoesn't know me as Horncastle, your husband,--for all he'sbound up my property for you,--made his big strike with his twopartners. I was in his cabin that very night, and drank hiswhiskey. Oh, I'm all right there! I left everything all rightbehind me--only it's just as well he doesn't know I'm Horncastle.And as the boy happened to be there with me"-- He stopped, andlooked at her significantly. The expression of her face changed. Eagerness, anxiety, and evenfear came into it in turn, but always mingling with some scorn thatdominated her. "The boy!" she said in a voice that had changed too;"well, what about him? You promised to tell me all,--all!" "Where's the money?" he said. "Husband and wife are one,I know," he went on with a coarse laugh, "but I don't trustmyself in these matters." She took from a traveling-reticule that lay beside her a roll ofnotes and a chamois leather bag of coin, and laid them on the tablebefore him. He examined both carefully. "All right," he said. "I see you've got the checks made out 'tobearer.' Your head's level, Conny. Pity you and me can'tagree." "I went to the bank across the way as soon as I arrived," shesaid, with contemptuous directness. "I told them I was going overto Hymettus and might want money." He dropped into a chair before her with his broad heavy handsupon his knees, and looked at her with an equal, though baser,contempt: for his was mingled with a certain pride of mastery andpossession. "And, of course, you'll go to Hymettus and cut a splurge as youalways do. The beautiful Mrs. Horncastle! The helpless victim of awretched, dissipated, disgraced, gambling husband. So dreadfullysad, you know, and so interesting! Could get a divorce from thebrute if she wanted, but won't, on account of her religiousscruples. And so while the brute is gambling, swindling, disgracinghimself, and dodging a shot here and a lynch committee there, twoor three hundred miles away, you're splurging round in first-classhotels and watering-places, doing the injured and abused, and runafter by a lot of men who are ready to take my place, and, maybe,some of my reputation along with it." "Stop!" she said suddenly, in a voice that made the glasschandelier ring. He had risen too, with a quick, uneasy glancetowards the door. But her outbreak passed as suddenly, and sinkingback into her chair, she said, with her previous scornfulresignation, "Never mind. Go on. You know you 're lying!" He sat down again and looked at her critically. "Yes, as far asyou're concerned I was lying! I know your style. But as youknow, too, that I'd kill you and the first man I suspected, andthere ain't a judge or a jury in all Californy that wouldn't let mego free for it, and even consider, too, that it had wiped off thewhole slate agin me--it's to my credit!" "I know what you men call chivalry," she said coldly, "but I didnot come here to buy a knowledge of that. So now about the child?"she ended abruptly, leaning forward again with the same look ofeager solicitude in her eyes. "Well, about the child--our child--though, perhaps, I prefer tosay my child," he began, with a certain brutal frankness."I'll tell you. But first, I don't want you to talk aboutbuying your information of me. If I haven't told youanything before, it's because I didn't think you oughter know. If Ididn't trust the child to you, it's because I didn't thinkyou could go shashaying about with a child that was three years oldwhen I"--he stopped and wiped his mouth with the back of hishand--"made an honest woman of you--I think that's what they callit." "But," she said eagerly, ignoring the insult, "I could havehidden it where no one but myself would have known it. I could havesent it to school and visited it as a relation." "Yes," he said curtly, "like all women, and then blurted it outsome day and made it worse." "But," she said desperately, "even then, suppose I hadbeen willing to take the shame of it! I have taken more!" "But I didn't intend that you should," he said roughly. "You are very careful of my reputation," she returnedscornfully. "Not by a d----d sight," he burst out; "but I care forhis! I'm not goin' to let any man call him a bastard!" Callous as she had become even under this last cruel blow, shecould not but see something in his coarse eyes she had never seenbefore; could not but hear something in his brutal voice she hadnever heard before! Was it possible that somewhere in the depths ofhis sordid nature he had his own contemptible sense of honor? Ahysterical feeling came over her hitherto passive disgust andscorn, but it disappeared with his next sentence in a haze ofanxiety. "No!" he said hoarsely, "he had enough wrong done himalready." "What do you mean?" she said imploringly. "Or are you againlying? You said, four years ago, that he had 'got into trouble;'that was your excuse for keeping him from me. Or was that a lie,too?" His manner changed and softened, but not for any pity for hiscompanion, but rather from some change in his own feelings. "Oh,that," he said, with a rough laugh, "that was only a kind o'trouble any sassy kid like him was likely to get into. You ain'tgot no call to hear that, for," he added, with a momentary returnto his previous manner, "the wrong that was done him is mylookout! You want to know what I did with him, how he's been lookedarter, and where he is? You want the worth of your money. That'ssquare enough. But first I want you to know, though you mayn'tbelieve it, that every red cent you've given me to-night goes tohim. And don't you forget it." For all his vulgar frankness she knew he had lied to her manytimes before,--maliciously, wantonly, complacently, but neverevasively; yet there was again that something in his manner whichtold her he was now telling the truth. "Well," he began, settling himself back in his chair, "I toldyou I brought him to Heavy Tree Hill. After I left you I wasn'tgoing to trust him to no school; he knew enough for me; but when Ileft those parts where nobody knew you, and got a little nearer'Frisco, where people might have known us both, I thought it betternot to travel round with a kid o' that size as his father.So I got a young fellow here to pass him off as his littlebrother, and look after him and board him; and I paid him a bigprice for it, too, you bet! You wouldn't think it was a man who'snow swelling around here, the top o' the pile, that ever took moneyfrom a brute like me, and for such schoolmaster work, too; but hedid, and his name was Van Loo, a clerk of the Ditch Company." "Van Loo!" said the woman, with a movement of disgust;"That man!" "What's the matter with Van Loo?" he said, with a coarse laugh,enjoying his wife's discomfiture. "He speaks French and Spanish,and you oughter hear the kid roll off the lingo he's got from him.He's got style, and knows how to dress, and you ought to see thekid bow and scrape, and how he carries himself. Now, Van Loo wasn'texactly my style, and I reckon I don't hanker after him much, buthe served my purpose." "And this man knows"--she said, with a shudder. "He knows Steptoe and the boy, but he don't know Horncastle noryou. Don't you be skeert. He's the last man in the world whowould hanker to see me or the kid again, or would dare to say thathe ever had! Lord! I'd like to see his fastidious mug if me andEddy walked in upon him and his high-toned mother and sister somearternoon." He threw himself back and laughed a derisive,spasmodic, choking laugh, which was so far from being genial thatit even seemed to indicate a lively appreciation of pain in othersrather than of pleasure in himself. He had often laughed at her inthe same way. "And where is he now?" she said, with a compressed lip. "At school. Where, I don't tell you. You know why. But he'slooked after by me, and d----d well looked after, too." She hesitated, composed her face with an effort, parted herlips, and looked out of the window into the gathering darkness.Then after a moment she said slowly, yet with a certainprecision:-"And his mother? Do you ever talk to him of her?Does--does he ever speak of me?" "What do you think?" he said comfortably, changing his positionin the chair, and trying to read her face in the shadow. "Come,now. You don't know, eh? Well--no! No! You understand. No!He's my friend--mine! He's stood by me through thickand thin. Run at my heels when everybody else fled me. Dodgedvigilance committees with me, laid out in the brush with me withhis hand in mine when the sheriff's deputies were huntin' me; shuthis jaw close when, if he squealed, he'd have been called anothervictim of the brute Horncastle, and been as petted and canoodled asyou." It would have been difficult for any one but the woman who knewthe man before her to have separated his brutish delight in painingher from another feeling she had never dreamt him capable of,--anintense and fierce pride in his affection for his child. And it wasthe more hopeless to her that it was not the mere sentiment ofreciprocation, but the material instinct of paternity in its mostanimal form. And it seemed horrible to her that the only outcome ofwhat had been her own wild, youthful passion for this brute wasthis love for the flesh of her flesh, for she was more and moreconscious as he spoke that her yearning for the boy was theyearning of an equally dumb and unreasoning maternity. They had metagain as animals--in fear, contempt, and anger of each other; butthe animal had triumphed in both. When she spoke again it was as the woman of the world,--thewoman who had laughed two years ago at the irrepressible Barker."It's a new thing," she said, languidly turning her rings on herfingers, "to see you in the role of a doting father. And may I askhow long you have had this amiable weakness, and how long it is tolast?" To her surprise and the keen retaliating delight of her sex, aconscious flush covered his face to the crisp edges of his blackand matted beard. For a moment she hoped that he had lied. But, toher greater surprise, he stammered in equal frankness: "It's growedupon me for the last five years--ever since I was alone with him."He stopped, cleared his throat, and then, standing up before her,said in his former voice, but with a more settled and intensedeliberation: "You wanter know how long it will last, do ye? Well,you know your special friend, Jim Stacy--the big millionaire--thegreat Jim of the Stock Exchange--the man that pinches the moneymarket of Californy between his finger and thumb and makes itsqueal in New York--the man who shakes the stock market when hesneezes? Well, it will go on until that man is a beggar; until hehas to borrow a dime for his breakfast, and slump out of his lunchwith a cent's worth of rat poison or a bullet in his head! It'll goon until his old partner--that softy George Barker--comes to thebottom of his d----d fool luck and is a penny-a-liner for thepapers and a hanger-round at free lunches, and his scatter-brainedwife runs away with another man! It'll go on until the hightonedDemorest, the last of those three little tin gods of Heavy TreeHill, will have to climb down, and will know what I feel and whathe's made me feel, and will wish himself in hell before he evermade the big strike on Heavy Tree! That's me! You hear me! I'mshoutin'! It'll last till then! It may be next week, next month,next year. But it'll come. And when it does come you'll see me andEddy just waltzin' in and takin' the chief seats in the synagogue!And you'll have a free pass to the show!" Either he was too intoxicated with his vengeful vision, or theshadows of the room had deepened, but he did not see the quickflush that had risen to his wife's face with this allusion toBarker, nor the after-settling of her handsome features into adogged determination equal to his own. His blind fury against thethree partners did not touch her curiosity; she was only struckwith the evident depth of his emotion. He had never been abraggart; his hostility had always been lazy and cynical.Remembering this, she had a faint stirring of respect for theundoubted courage and consciousness of strength shown in this wildbut single-handed crusade against wealth and power; rather,perhaps, it seemed to her to condone her own weakness in heryouthful and inexplicable passion for him. No wonder she hadsubmitted. "Then you have nothing more to tell me?" she said after a pause,rising and going towards the mantel. "You needn't light up for me," he returned, rising also. "I amgoing. Unless," he added, with his coarse laugh, "you think itwouldn't look well for Mrs. Horncastle to have been sitting in thedark with--a stranger!" He paused as she contemptuously put downthe candlestick and threw the unlit match into the grate. "No, I'venothing more to tell. He's a fancy-looking pup. You'd take him fortwenty-one, though he's only sixteen--clean-limbed and perfect--butfor one thing"-- He stopped. He met her quick look ofinterrogation, however, with a lowering silence that, nevertheless,changed again as he surveyed her erect figure by the faint light ofthe window with a sardonic smile. "He favors you, I think, and inall but one thing, too." "And that?" she queried coldly, as he seemed to hesitate. "He ain't ashamed of me," he returned, with a laugh. The door closed behind him; she heard his heavy step descend thecreaking stairs; he was gone. She went to the window and threw itopen, as if to get rid of the atmosphere charged with hispresence,--a presence still so potent that she now knew that forthe last five minutes she had been, to her horror, strugglingagainst its magnetism. She even recoiled now at the thought of herchild, as if, in these new confidences over it, it had revived theold intimacy in this link of their common flesh. She looked downfrom her window on the square shoulders, thick throat, and crispmatted hair of her husband as he vanished in the darkness, and drewa breath of freedom,--a freedom not so much from him as from herown weakness that he was bearing away with him into the exoneratingnight. She shut the window and sank down in her chair again, but in theencompassing and compassionate obscurity of the room. And this wasthe man she had loved and for whom she had wrecked her young life!Or was it love? and, if not, how was she better thanhe? Worse; for he was more loyal to that passion that had broughtthem together and its responsibilities than she was. She hadsuffered the perils and pangs of maternity, and yet had only themere animal yearning for her offspring, while he had taken over thetoil and duty, and even the devotion, of parentage himself. Butthen she remembered also how he had fascinated her--a simpleschoolgirl-by his sheer domineering strength, and how theobjections of her parents to this coarse and common man had forcedher into a clandestine intimacy that ended in her completesubjection to him. She remembered the birth of an infant whoseconcealment from her parents and friends was compassed by his lowcunning; she remembered the late atonement of marriage preferred bythe man she had already begun to loathe and fear, and who she nowbelieved was eager only for her inheritance. She remembered herabject compliance through the greater fear of the world, the stormyscenes that followed their ill-omened union, her final abandonmentof her husband, and the efforts of her friends and family who hadrescued the last of her property from him. She was glad sheremembered it; she dwelt upon it, upon his cruelty, his coarsenessand vulgarity, until she saw, as she honestly believed, the hiddensprings of his affection for their child. It was his childin nature, however it might have favored her in looks; it washis own brutal self he was worshiping in his brutalprogeny. How else could it have ignored her--its own mother?She never doubted the truth of what he had told her--she had seenit in his own triumphant eyes. And yet she would have made a kindmother; she remembered with a smile and a slight rising of colorthe affection of Barker's baby for her; she remembered with adeepening of that color the thrill of satisfaction she had felt inher husband's fulmination against Mrs. Barker, and, more than all,she felt in his blind and foolish hatred of Barker himself adelicious condonation of the strange feeling that had sprung up inher heart for Barker's simple, straightforward nature. How couldhe understand, how could they understand (by theplural she meant Mrs. Barker and Horncastle), a character soinnately noble. In her strange attraction towards him she had felta charming sense of what she believed was a superior and evenmatronly protection; in the utter isolation of her life now-andwith her husband's foolish abuse of him ringing in her ears--itseemed a sacred duty. She had lost a son. Providence had sent heran ideal friend to replace him. And this was quite consistent, too,with a faint smile that began to play about her mouth as sherecalled some instances of Barker's delightful and irresistibleyouthfulness. There was a clatter of hoofs and the sound of many voices fromthe street. Mrs. Horncastle knew it was the down coach changinghorses; it would be off again in a few moments, and, no doubt,bearing her husband away with it. A new feeling of relief came overher as she at last heard the warning "All aboard!" and the greatvehicle clattered and rolled into the darkness, trailing itsburning lights across her walls and ceiling. But now she heardsteps on the staircase, a pause before her room, a whisper ofvoices, the opening of the door, the rustle of a skirt, and alittle feminine cry of protest as a man apparently tried to followthe figure into the room. "No, no! I tell you no!"remonstrated the woman's voice in a hurried whisper. "It won't do.Everybody knows me here. You must not come in now. You must wait tobe announced by the servant. Hush! Go!" There was a slight struggle, the sound of a kiss, and the womansucceeded in finally shutting the door. Then she walked slowly, butwith a certain familiarity towards the mantel, struck a match andlit the candle. The light shone upon the bright eyes and slightlyflushed face of Mrs. Barker. But the motionless woman in the chairhad recognized her voice and the voice of her companion at once.And then their eyes met. Mrs. Barker drew back, but did not utter a cry. Mrs. Horncastle,with eyes even brighter than her companion's, smiled. The reddeepened in Mrs. Barker's cheek. "This is my room!" she said indignantly, with a sweeping gesturearound the walls. "I should judge so," said Mrs. Horncastle, following thegesture; "but," she added quietly, "they put me into it. Itappears, however, they did not expect you." Mrs. Barker saw her mistake. "No, no," she said apologetically,"of course not." Then she added, with nervous volubility, sittingdown and tugging at her gloves, "You see, I just ran down fromMarysville to take a look at my father's old house on my way toHymettus. I hope I haven't disturbed you. Perhaps," she said, withsudden eagerness, "you were asleep when I came in!" "No," said Mrs. Horncastle, "I was not sleeping nor dreaming. Iheard you come in." "Some of these men are such idiots," said Mrs. Barker, with ahalf- hysterical laugh. "They seem to think if a woman accepts theleast courtesy from them they've a right to be familiar. But Ifancy that fellow was a little astonished when I shut the door inhis face." "I fancy he was," returned Mrs. Horncastle dryly. "But Ishouldn't call Mr. Van Loo an idiot. He has the reputation of beinga cautious business man." Mrs. Barker bit her lip. Her companion had been recognized. Sherose with a slight flirt of her skirt. "I suppose I must go and geta room; there was nobody in the office when I came. Everything isbadly managed here since my father took away the best servants toHymettus." She moved with affected carelessness towards the door,when Mrs. Horncastle, without rising from her seat, said:-"Why not stay here?" Mrs. Barker brightened for a moment. "Oh," she said, with politedeprecation, "I couldn't think of turning you out." "I don't intend you shall," said Mrs. Horncastle. "We will stayhere together until you go with me to Hymettus, or until Mr. VanLoo leaves the hotel. He will hardly attempt to come in here againif I remain." Mrs. Barker, with a half-laugh, sat down irresolutely. Mrs.Horncastle gazed at her curiously; she was evidently a novice inthis sort of thing. But, strange to say,--and I leave the ethics ofthis for the sex to settle,--the fact did not soften Mrs.Horncastle's heart, nor in the least qualify her attitude towardsthe younger woman. After an awkward pause Mrs. Barker rose again."Well, it's very good of you, and--and---I'll just run out and washmy hands and get the dust off me, and come back." "No, Mrs. Barker," said Mrs. Horncastle, rising and approachingher, "you will first wash your hands of this Mr. Van Loo, and getsome of the dust of the rendezvous off you before you do anythingelse. You can do it by simply telling him, should youmeet him in the hall, that I was sitting here when he came in,and heard everything! Depend upon it, he won't trouble youagain." But Mrs. Barker, though inexperienced in love, was a goodfighter. The best of the sex are. She dropped into therocking-chair, and began rocking backwards and forwards while stilltugging at her gloves, and said, in a gradually warming voice, "Icertainly shall not magnify Mr. Van Loo's silliness to thatimportance. And I have yet to learn what you mean by talking abouta rendezvous! And I want to know," she continued, suddenly stoppingher rocking and tilting the rockers impertinently behind her, as,with her elbows squared on the chair arms, she tilted her own facedefiantly up into Mrs. Horncastle's, "how a woman in yourposition--who doesn't live with her husband--dares to talk tome!" There was a lull before the storm. Mrs. Horncastle approachednearer, and, laying her hand on the back of the chair, leaned overher, and, with a white face and a metallic ring in her voice, said:"It is just because I am a woman in my position that I do!It is because I don't live with my husband that I can tell you whatit will be when you no longer live with yours--which will be theinevitable result of what you are now doing. It is because Iwas in this position that the very man who is pursuing you,because he thinks you are discontented with your husband,once thought he could pursue me because I had left mine. Youare here with him alone, without the knowledge of your husband;call it folly, caprice, vanity, or what you like, it can have butone end--to put you in my place at last, to be considered the fairgame afterwards for any man who may succeed him. You can test himand the truth of what I say by telling him now that I heardall." "Suppose he doesn't care what you have heard," said Mrs. Barkersharply. "Suppose he says nobody would believe you, if 'telling' isyour game. Suppose he is a friend of my husband and he thinks him amuch better guardian of my reputation than a woman like you.Suppose he should be the first one to tell my husband of the foulslander invented by you!" For an instant Mrs. Horncastle was taken aback by the audacityof the woman before her. She knew the simple confidence and boyishtrust of Barker in his wife in spite of their sometimes strainedrelations, and she knew how difficult it would be to shake it. Andshe had no idea of betraying Mrs. Barker's secret to him, thoughshe had made this scene in his interest. She had wished to saveMrs. Barker from a compromising situation, even if there was acertain vindictiveness in her exposing her to herself. Yet she knewit was quite possible now, if Mrs. Barker had immediate access toher husband, that she would convince him of her perfect innocence.Nevertheless, she had still great confidence in Van Loo's fear ofscandal and his utter unmanliness. She knew he was not in love withMrs. Barker, and this puzzled her when she considered the evidentrisk he was running now. Her face, however, betrayed nothing. Shedrew back from Mrs. Barker, and, with an indifferent and gracefulgesture towards the door, said, as she leaned against the mantel,"Go, then, and see this much-abused gentleman, and then go togetherwith him and make peace with your husband--even on those terms. IfI have saved you from the consequences of your folly I shall bewilling to bear even his blame." "Whatever I do," said Mrs. Barker, rising hotly, "I shall notstay here any longer to be insulted." She flounced out of the roomand swept down the staircase into the office. Here she found anoverworked clerk, and with crimson cheeks and flashing eyes wantedto know why in her own father's hotel she had found her ownsitting-room engaged, and had been obliged to wait half an hourbefore she could be shown into a decent apartment to remove her hatand cloak in; and how it was that even the gentleman who had kindlyescorted her had evidently been unable to procure her anyassistance. She said this in a somewhat high voice, which mighthave reached the ears of that gentleman had he been in thevicinity. But he was not, and she was forced to meet the somewhatdazed apologies of the clerk alone, and to accompany thechambermaid to a room only a few paces distant from the one she hadquitted. Here she hastily removed her outer duster and hat, washedher hands, and consulted her excited face in the mirror, with thedoor ajar and an ear sensitively attuned to any step in thecorridor. But all this was effected so rapidly that she was at lastobliged to sit down in a chair near the half-opened door, and wait.She waited five minutes-ten--but still no footstep. Then she wentout into the corridor and listened, and then, smoothing her face,she slipped downstairs, past the door of that hateful room, andreappeared before the clerk with a smiling but somewhat pale andlanguid face. She had found the room very comfortable, but it wasdoubtful whether she would stay over night or go on to Hymettus.Had anybody been inquiring for her? She expected to meet friends.No! And her escort--the gentleman who came with her--was possiblyin the billiard-room or the bar? "Oh no! He was gone," said the clerk. "Gone!" echoed Mrs. Barker. "Impossible! He was--he was hereonly a moment ago." The clerk rang a bell sharply. The stableman appeared. "That tall, smooth-faced man, in a high hat, who came with thelady," said the clerk severely and concisely,--"didn't you tell mehe was gone?" "Yes, sir," said the stableman. "Are you sure?" interrupted Mrs. Barker, with a dazzling smilethat, however, masked a sudden tightening round her heart. "Quite sure, miss," said the stableman, "for he was in the yardwhen Steptoe came, after missing the coach. He wanted a buggy totake him over to the Divide. We hadn't one, so he went over to theother stables, and he didn't come back, so I reckon he's gone. Iremember it, because Steptoe came by a minute after he'd gone, inanother buggy, and as he was going to the Divide, too, I wonderedwhy the gentleman hadn't gone with him." "And he left no message for me? He said nothing?" asked Mrs.Barker, quite breathless, but still smiling. "He said nothin' to me but 'Isn't that Steptoe over there?' whenSteptoe came in. And I remember he said it kinder suddent--as if hewas reminded o' suthin' he'd forgot; and then he asked for a buggy.Ye see, miss," added the man, with a certain rough considerationfor her disappointment, "that's mebbe why he clean forgot to leavea message." Mrs. Barker turned away, and ascended the stairs. Selfishness isquick to recognize selfishness, and she saw in a flash the reasonof Van Loo's abandonment of her. Some fear of discovery had alarmedhim; perhaps Steptoe knew her husband; perhaps he had heard of Mrs.Horncastle's possession of the sitting-room; perhaps--for she hadnot seen him since their playful struggle at the door--he hadrecognized the woman who was there, and the selfish coward had runaway. Yes; Mrs. Horncastle was right: she had been only a miserabledupe. Her cheeks blazed as she entered the room she had just quitted,and threw herself in a chair by the window. She bit her lip as sheremembered how for the last three months she had been slowlyyielding to Van Loo's cautious but insinuating solicitation, from aflirtation in the San Francisco hotel to a clandestine meeting inthe street; from a ride in the suburbs to a supper in a fastrestaurant after the theatre. Other women did it who werefashionable and rich, as Van Loo had pointed out to her. Otherfashionable women also gambled in stocks, and had their privatebroker in a "Charley" or a "Jack." Why should not Mrs. Barker havebusiness with a "Paul" Van Loo, particularly as this fast crazepermitted secret meetings?--for business of this kind could not beconducted in public, and permitted the fair gambler to call atprivate offices without fear and without reproach. Mrs. Barker'svanity, Mrs. Barker's love of ceremony and form, Mrs. Barker'ssnobbishness, were flattered by the attentions of this polishedgentleman with a foreign name, which even had the flavor ofnobility, who never picked up her fan and handed it to her withoutbowing, and always rose when she entered the room. Mrs. Barker'sscant schoolgirl knowledge was touched by this gentleman, who spokeFrench fluently, and delicately explained to her the libretto of arisky opera bouffe. And now she had finally yielded to a meetingout of San Francisco--and an ostensible visit--still as aspeculator--to one or two mining districts--with her broker.This was the boldest of her steps--an original idea of thefashionable Van Loo--which, no doubt, in time would become a craze,too. But it was a long step--and there was a streak of rusticdecorum in Mrs. Barker's nature--the instinct that made KittyCarter keep a perfectly secluded and distinct sitting-room in thedays when she served her father's guests--that now had impelled herto make it a proviso that the first step of her journey should befrom her old home in her father's hotel. It was this instinct ofthe proprieties that had revived in her suddenly at the door of theold sitting-room. Then a new phase of the situation flashed upon her. It was hardfor her vanity to accept Van Loo's desertion as voluntary andfinal. What if that hateful woman had lured him away by some trickor artfully designed message? She was capable of such meanness toinsure the fulfillment of her prophecy. Or, more dreadful thought,what if she had some hold on his affections--she had said that hehad pursued her; or, more infamous still, there were some secretunderstanding between them, and that she--Mrs. Barker--was the dupeof them both! What was she doing in the hotel at such a moment?What was her story of going to Hymettus but a lie as transparent asher own? The tortures of jealousy, which is as often the incentiveas it is the result of passion, began to rack her. She had probablyyet known no real passion for this man; but with the thought of hisabandoning her, and the conception of his faithlessness, came thewish to hold and keep him that was dangerously near it. What if hewere even then in that room, the room where she had said she wouldnot stay to be insulted, and they, thus secured against herintrusion, were laughing at her now? She half rose at the thought,but a sound of a horse's hoofs in the stable-yard arrested her. Sheran to the window which gave upon it, and, crouching down besideit, listened eagerly. The clatter of hoofs ceased; the stablemanwas talking to some one; suddenly she heard the stableman say,"Mrs. Barker is here." Her heart leaped,--Van Loo had returned. But here the voice of the other man which she had not yet heardarose for the first time clear and distinct. "Are you quite sure? Ididn't know she left San Francisco." The room reeled around her. The voice was George Barker's, herhusband! "Very well," he continued. "You needn't put up my horsefor the night. I may take her back a little later in thebuggy." In another moment she had swept down the passage, and burst intothe other room. Mrs. Horncastle was sitting by the table with abook in her hand. She started as the half-maddened woman closed thedoor, locked it behind her, and cast herself on her knees at herfeet. "My husband is here," she gasped. "What shall I do? In heaven'sname help me!" "Is Van Loo still here?" said Mrs. Horncastle quickly. "No; gone. He went when I came." Mrs. Horncastle caught her hand and looked intently into herfrightened face. "Then what have you to fear from your husband?"she said abruptly. "You don't understand. He didn't know I was here. He thought mein San Francisco." "Does he know it now?" "Yes. I heard the stableman tell him. Couldn't you say I camehere with you; that we were here together; that it was just alittle freak of ours? Oh, do!" Mrs. Horncastle thought a moment. "Yes," she said, "we'll seehim here together." "Oh no! no!" said Mrs. Barker suddenly, clinging to her dressand looking fearfully towards the door. "I couldn't,couldn't see him now. Say I'm sick, tired out, gone to myroom." "But you'll have to see him later," said Mrs. Horncastlewonderingly. "Yes, but he may go first. I heard him tell them not to put uphis horse." "Good!" said Mrs. Horncastle suddenly. "Go to your room and lockthe door, and I'll come to you later. Stop! Would Mr. Barker belikely to disturb you if I told him you would like to bealone?" "No, he never does. I often tell him that." Mrs. Horncastle smiled faintly. "Come, quick, then," she said,"for he may come here first." Opening the door she passed into the half-dark and empty hall."Now run!" She heard the quick rustle of Mrs. Barker's skirt dieaway in the distance, the opening and shutting of a door--silence-and then turned back into her own room. She was none too soon. Presently she heard Barker's voicesaying, "Thank you, I can find the way," his still buoyant step onthe staircase, and then saw his brown curls rising above therailing. The light streaming through the open door of the sittingroom into the half-lit hall had partially dazzled him, and, alreadybewildered, he was still more dazzled at the unexpected apparitionof the smiling face and bright eyes of Mrs. Horncastle standing inthe doorway. "You have fairly caught us," she said, with charming composure;"but I had half a mind to let you wander round the hotel a littlelonger. Come in." Barker followed her in mechanically, and sheclosed the door. "Now, sit down," she said gayly, "and tell me howyou knew we were here, and what you mean by surprising us at thishour." Barker's ready color always rose on meeting Mrs. Horncastle, forwhom he entertained a respectful admiration, not without some fearof her worldly superiority. He flushed, bowed, and stared somewhatblankly around the room, at the familiar walls, at the chair fromwhich Mrs. Horncastle had just risen, and finally at his wife'sglove, which Mrs. Horncastle had a moment before ostentatiouslythrown on the table. Seeing which she pounced upon it with assumedarchness, and pretended to conceal it. "I had no idea my wife was here," he said at last, "and I wasquite surprised when the man told me, for she had not written to meabout it." As his face was brightening, she for the first timenoticed that his frank gray eyes had an abstracted look, and therewas a faint line of contraction on his youthful forehead. "Stillless," he added, "did I look for the pleasure of meeting you. For Ionly came here to inquire about my old partner, Demorest, whoarrived from Europe a few days ago, and who should have reachedHymettus early this afternoon. But now I hear he came all the wayby coach instead of by rail, and got off at the cross-road, and wemust have passed each other on the different trails. So my journeywould have gone for nothing, only that I now shall have thepleasure of going back with you and Kitty. It will be a lovelydrive by moonlight." Relieved by this revelation, it was easy work for Mrs.Horncastle to launch out into a playful, tantalizing, witty--but, Igrieve to say, entirely imaginative--account of her escapade withMrs. Barker. How, left alone at the San Francisco hotel while theirgentlemen friends were enjoying themselves at Hymettus, theyresolved upon a little trip, partly for the purpose of looking intosome small investments of their own, and partly for the fun of thething. What funny experiences they had! How, in particular, onehorrid inquisitive, vulgar wretch had been boring a European fellowpassenger who was going to Hymettus, finally asking him where hehad come from last, and when he answered "Hymettus," thought theman was insulting him-"But," interrupted the laughing Barker, "that passenger may havebeen Demorest, who has just come from Greece, and surely Kittywould have recognized him." Mrs. Horncastle instantly saw her blunder, and not onlyretrieved it, but turned it to account. Ah, yes! but by that timepoor Kitty, unused to long journeys and the heat, was utterlyfagged out, was asleep, and perfectly unrecognizable in veils anddusters on the back seat of the coach. And this brought her to thepoint-- which was, that she was sorry to say, on arriving, the poorchild was nearly wild with a headache from fatigue and had gone tobed, and she had promised not to disturb her. The undisguised amusement, mingled with relief, that hadoverspread Barker's face during this lively recital might havepricked the conscience of Mrs. Horncastle, but for some reason Ifear it did not. But it emboldened her to go on. "I said I promisedher that I would see she wasn't disturbed; but, of course, now thatyou, her husband, have come, if"-"Not for worlds," interrupted Barker earnestly. "I know poorKitty's headaches, and I never disturb her, poor child, except whenI'm thoughtless." And here one of the most thoughtful men in theworld in his sensitive consideration of others beamed at her withsuch frank and wonderful eyes that the arch hypocrite before himwith difficulty suppressed a hysterical desire to laugh, and feltthe conscious blood flush her to the root of her hair. "You know,"he went on, with a sigh, half of relief and half of reminiscence,"that I often think I'm a great bother to a clear-headed, sensiblegirl like Kitty. She knows people so much better than I do. She'swonderfully equipped for the world, and, you see, I'm only 'lucky,'as everybody says, and I dare say part of my luck was to have gother. I'm very glad she's a friend of yours, you know, for somehow Ifancied always that you were not interested in her, or that youdidn't understand each other until now. It's odd that nice womendon't always like nice women, isn't it? I'm glad she was with you;I was quite startled to learn she was here, and couldn't make itout. I thought at first she might have got anxious about our littleSta, who is with me and the nurse at Hymettus. But I'm glad it wasonly a lark. I shouldn't wonder," he added, with a laugh, "althoughshe always declares she isn't one of those 'doting, idioticmothers,' that she found it a little dull without the boy, for allshe thought it was better for me to take him somewhere for achange of air." The situation was becoming more difficult for Mrs. Horncastlethan she had conceived. There had been a certain excitement in itsfirst direct appeal to her tact and courage, and even, shebelieved, an unselfish desire to save the relations between husbandand wife if she could. But she had not calculated upon hisunconscious revelations, nor upon their effect upon herself. Shehad concluded to believe that Kitty had, in a moment of folly, lentherself to this hare-brained escapade, but it now might be possiblethat it had been deliberately planned. Kitty had sent her husbandand child away three weeks before. Had she told the whole truth?How long had this been going on? And if the soulless Van Loo haddeserted her now, was it not, perhaps, the miserable ending of anintrigue rather than its beginning? Had she been as great a dupe ofthis woman as the husband before her? A new and doubleconsciousness came over her that for a moment prevented her frommeeting his honest eyes. She felt the shame of being an accomplicemingled with a fierce joy at the idea of a climax that mightseparate him from his wife forever. Luckily he did not notice it, but with a continued sense ofrelief threw himself back in his chair, and glancing familiarlyround the walls broke into his youthful laugh. "Lord! how Iremember this room in the old days. It was Kitty's own privatesitting-room, you know, and I used to think it looked just as freshand pretty as she. I used to think her crayon drawing wonderful,and still more wonderful that she should have that unnecessarytalent when it was quite enough for her to be just 'Kitty.' Youknow, don't you, how you feel at those times when you're quitehappy in being inferior"-- He stopped a moment with a suddenrecollection that Mrs. Horncastle's marriage had been notoriouslyunhappy. "I mean," he went on with a shy little laugh and aninnocent attempt at gallantry which the very directness of hissimple nature made atrociously obvious,--"I mean what you've madelots of young fellows feel. There used to be a picture of ColonelBrigg on the mantelpiece, in full uniform, and signed by himself'for Kitty;' and Lord! how jealous I was of it, for Kitty nevertook presents from gentlemen, and nobody even was allowed in here,though she helped her father all over the hotel. She was awfullystrict in those days," he interpolated, with a thoughtful look anda half-sigh; "but then she wasn't married. I proposed to her inthis very room! Lord! I remember how frightened I was." He stoppedfor an instant, and then said with a certain timidity, "Do you mindmy telling you something about it?" Mrs. Horncastle was hardly prepared to hear these ingenuousdomestic details, but she smiled vaguely, although she could notsuppress a somewhat impatient movement with her hands. Even Barkernoticed it, but to her surprise moved a little nearer to her, andin a half-entreating way said, "I hope I don't bore you, but it'ssomething confidential. Do you know that she first refusedme?" Mrs. Horncastle smiled, but could not resist a slight toss ofher head. "I believe they all do when they are sure of a man." "No!" said Barker eagerly, "you don't understand. I proposed toher because I thought I was rich. In a foolish moment I thought Ihad discovered that some old stocks I had had acquired a fabulousvalue. She believed it, too, but because she thought I was now arich man and she only a poor girl--a mere servant to her father'sguests--she refused me. Refused me because she thought I mightregret it in the future, because she would not have it said thatshe had taken advantage of my proposal only when I was rich enoughto make it." "Well?" said Mrs. Horncastle incredulously, gazing straightbefore her; "and then?" "In about an hour I discovered my error, that my stocks wereworthless, that I was still a poor man. I thought it only honest toreturn to her and tell her, even though I had no hope. And then shepitied me, and cried, and accepted me. I tell it to you as herfriend." He drew a little nearer and quite fraternally laid hishand upon her own. "I know you won't betray me, though you maythink it wrong for me to have told it; but I wanted you to know howgood she was and true." For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was amazed and discomfited,although she saw, with the inscrutable instinct of her sex, noinconsistency between the Kitty of those days and the Kitty nowshamefully hiding from her husband in the same hotel. No doubtKitty had some good reason for her chivalrous act. But she couldsee the unmistakable effect of that act upon the more logicallyreasoning husband, and that it might lead him to be more mercifulto the later wrong. And there was a keener irony that his firstmovement of unconscious kindliness towards her was the outcome ofhis affection for his undeserving wife. "You said just now she was more practical than you," she saiddryly. "Apart from this evidence of it, what other reasons have youfor thinking so? Do you refer to her independence or her dealingsin the stock market?" she added, with a laugh. "No," said Barker seriously, "for I do not think her quitepractical there; indeed, I'm afraid she is about as bad as I am.But I'm glad you have spoken, for I can now talk confidentiallywith you, and as you and she are both in the same ventures, perhapsshe will feel less compunction in hearing from you--as your ownopinion--what I have to tell you than if I spoke to her myself. Iam afraid she trusts implicitly to Van Loo's judgment as herbroker. I believe he is strictly honorable, but the general opinionof his business insight is not high. They--perhaps I ought to sayhe--have been at least so unlucky that they might havelearned prudence. The loss of twenty thousand dollars in threemonths"-"Twenty thousand!" echoed Mrs. Horncastle. "Yes. Why, you knew that; it was in the mine you and shevisited; or, perhaps," he added hastily, as he flushed at hisindiscretion, "she didn't tell you that." But Mrs. Horncastle as hastily said, "Yes--yes--of course, onlyI had forgotten the amount;" and he continued:-"That loss would have frightened any man; but you women are moredaring. Only Van Loo ought to have withdrawn. Don't you think so?Of course I couldn't say anything to him without seeming to condemnmy own wife; I couldn't say anything to her because it's herown money." "I didn't know that Mrs. Barker had any money of her own," saidMrs. Horncastle. "Well, I gave it to her," said Barker, with sublime simplicity,"and that would make it all the worse for me to speak aboutit." Mrs. Horncastle was silent. A new theory flashed upon her whichseemed to reconcile all the previous inconsistencies of thesituation. Van Loo, under the guise of a lover, was reallypossessing himself of Mrs. Barker's money. This accounted for therisks he was running in this escapade, which were so incongruous tothe rascal's nature. He was calculating that the scandal of anintrigue would relieve him of the perils of criminal defalcation.It was compatible with Kitty's innocence, though it did not relieveher vanity of the part it played in this despicable comedy ofpassion. All that Mrs. Horncastle thought of now was the effect ofits eventful revelation upon the man before her. Of course, hewould overlook his wife's trustfulness and business ignorance--itwould seem so like his own unselfish faith! That was the fault ofall unselfish goodness; it even took the color of adjacent evil,without altering the nature of either. Mrs. Horncastle set herteeth tightly together, but her beautiful mouth smiled upon Barker,though her eyes were bent upon the tablecloth before her. "I shall do all I can to impress your views upon her," she saidat last, "though I fear they will have little weight if given as myown. And you overrate my general influence with her." Her handsome head drooped in such a thoughtful humility thatBarker instinctively drew nearer to her. Besides, she had notlifted her dark lashes for some moments, and he had the stillyouthful habit of looking frankly into the eyes of those headdressed. "No," he said eagerly; "how could I? She could not help but loveyou and do as you would wish. I can't tell you how glad andrelieved I am to find that you and she have become such friends.You know I always thought you beautiful, I always thought you soclever--I was even a little frightened of you; but I never untilnow knew you were so good. No, stop! Yes, I did knowit. Do you remember once in San Francisco, when I found you withSta in your lap in the drawingroom? I knew it then. You tried tomake me think it was a whim--the fancy of a bored and worriedwoman. But I knew better. And I knew what you were thinking then.Shall I tell you?" As her eyes were still cast down, although her mouth was stillsmiling, in his endeavors to look into them his face was quite nearhers. He fancied that it bore the look she had worn oncebefore. "You were thinking," he said in a voice which had grown suddenlyquite hesitating and tremulous,--he did not know why,--"that thepoor little baby was quite friendless and alone. You were pityingit--you know you were--because there was no one to give it theloving care that was its due, and because it was intrusted to thathired nurse in that great hotel. You were thinking how you wouldlove it if it were yours, and how cruel it was that Love was sentwithout an object to waste itself upon. You were: I saw it in yourface." She suddenly lifted her eyes and looked full into his with alook that held and possessed him. For a moment his whole soulseemed to tremble on the verge of their lustrous depths, a nd hedrew back dizzy and frightened. What he saw there he never clearlyknew; but, whatever it was, it seemed to suddenly change hisrelations to her, to the room, to his wife, to the world without.It was a glimpse of a world of which he knew nothing. He had lookedfrankly and admiringly into the eyes of other pretty women; he hadeven gazed into her own before, but never with this feeling. Asudden sense that what he had seen there he had himself evoked,that it was an answer to some question he had scarcely yetformulated, and that they were both now linked by an understandingand consciousness that was irretrievable, came over him. He roseawkwardly and went to the window. She rose also, but more leisurelyand easily, moved one of the books on the table, smoothed out herskirts, and changed her seat to a little sofa. It is the woman whoalways comes out of these crucial moments unruffled. "I suppose you will be glad to see your friend Mr. Demorest whenyou go back," she said pleasantly; "for of course he will be atHymettus awaiting you." He turned eagerly, as he always did at the name. But even thenhe felt that Demorest was no longer of such importance to him. Hefelt, too, that he was not yet quite sure of his voice or even whatto say. As he hesitated she went on half playfully: "It seems hardthat you had to come all the way here on such a bootless errand.You haven't even seen your wife yet." The mention of his wife recalled him to himself, oddly enough,when Demorest's name had failed. But very differently. Out of hiswhirling consciousness came the instinctive feeling that he couldnot see her now. He turned, crossed the room, sat down on the sofabeside Mrs. Horncastle, and without, however, looking at her, said,with his eyes on the floor, "No; and I've been thinking that it'shardly worth while to disturb her so early to-morrow as I shouldhave to go. So I think it's a good deal better to let her have agood night's rest, remain here quietly with you to-morrow until thestage leaves, and that both of you come over together. My horse isstill saddled, and I will be back at Hymettus before Demorest hasgone to bed." He was obliged to look up at her as he rose. Mrs. Horncastle wassitting erect, beautiful and dazzling as even he had never seen herbefore. For his resolution had suddenly lifted a great weight fromher shoulders,--the dangerous meeting of husband and wife the nextmorning, and its results, whatever they might be, had been quietlyaverted. She felt, too, a half-frightened joy even in theconstrained manner in which he had imparted his determination. Thatfrankness which even she had sometimes found so crushing wasgone. "I really think you are quite right," she said, rising also,"and, besides, you see, it will give me a chance to talk to her asyou wished." "To talk to her as I wished?" echoed Barker abstractedly. "Yes, about Van Loo, you know," said Mrs. Horncastle,smiling. "Oh, certainly--about Van Loo, of course," he returnedhurriedly. "And then," said Mrs. Horncastle brightly, "I'll tell her.Stay!" she interrupted herself hurriedly. "Why need I say anythingabout your having been here at all? It might only annoy her,as you yourself suggest." She stopped breathlessly with partedlips. "Why, indeed?" said Barker vaguely. Yet all this was so unlikehis usual truthfulness that he slightly hesitated. "Besides," continued Mrs. Horncastle, noticing it, "you know youcan always tell her later, if necessary." And she added with acharming mischievousness, "As she didn't tell you she was coming, Ireally don't see why you are bound to tell her that you werehere." The sophistry pleased Barker, even though it put him into acertain retaliating attitude towards his wife which he was notaware of feeling. But, as Mrs. Horncastle put it, it was only aplayful attitude. "Certainly," he said. "Don't say anything about it." He moved to the door with his soft, broad-brimmed hat swingingbetween his fingers. She noticed for the first time that he lookedtaller in his long black serape and riding-boots, and, oddlyenough, much more like the hero of an amorous tryst than Van Loo."I know," she said brightly, "you are eager to get back to your oldfriend, and it would be selfish for me to try to keep you longer.You have had a stupid evening, but you have made it pleasant to meby telling me what you thought of me. And before you go I want youto believe that I shall try to keep that good opinion." She spokefrankly in contrast to the slight worldly constraint of Barker'smanner; it seemed as if they had changed characters. And then sheextended her hand. With a low bow, and without looking up, he took it. Again theirpulses seemed to leap together with one accord and the samemysterious understanding. He could not tell if he had unconsciouslypressed her hand or if she had returned the pressure. But whentheir hands unclasped it seemed as if it were the division of oneflesh and spirit. She remained standing by the open door until his footstepspassed down the staircase. Then she suddenly closed and locked thedoor with an instinct that Mrs. Barker might at once return nowthat he was gone, and she wished to be a moment alone to recoverherself. But she presently opened it again and listened. There wasa noise in the courtyard, but it sounded like the rattle of wheelsmore than the clatter of a horseman. Then she was overcome--asudden sense of pity for the unfortunate woman still hiding fromher husband--and felt a momentary chivalrous exaltation of spirit.Certainly she had done "good" to that wretched "Kitty;" perhaps shehad earned the epithet that Barker had applied to her. Perhaps thatwas the meaning of all this happiness to her, and the result was tobe only the happiness and reconciliation of the wife and husband.This was to be her reward. I grieve to say that the tears had comeinto her beautiful eyes at this satisfactory conclusion, but shedashed them away and ran out into the hall. It was quite dark, butthere was a faint glimmer on the opposite wall as if the door ofMrs. Barker's bedroom were ajar to an eager listener. She flewtowards the glimmer, and pushed the door open: the room was empty.Empty of Mrs. Barker, empty of her dressing- box, her reticule andshawl. She was gone. Still, Mrs. Horncastle lingered; the woman might have gotfrightened and retreated to some further room at the opening of thedoor and the coming out of her husband. She walked along thepassage, calling her name softly. She even penetrated the dreary,half-lit public parlor, expecting to find her crouching there. Thena sudden wild idea took possession of her: the miserable wife hadrepented of her act and of her concealment, and had creptdownstairs to await her husband in the office. She had told himsome new lie, had begged him to take her with him, and Barker, ofcourse, had assented. Yes, she now knew why she had heard therattling wheels instead of the clattering hoofs she had listenedfor. They had gone together, as he first proposed, in thebuggy. She ran swiftly down the stairs and entered the office. Theoverworked clerk was busy and querulously curt. These women werealways asking such idiotic questions. Yes, Mr. Barker had justgone. "With Mrs. Barker in the buggy?" asked Mrs. Horncastle. "No, as he came--on horseback. Mrs. Barker left half an hourago." "Alone?" This was apparently too much for the long-suffering clerk. Helifted his eyes to the ceiling, and then, with painful precision,and accenting every word with his pencil on the desk before him,said deliberately, "Mrs. George Barker--left--here--with her--escort--the--man she--was--always-asking--for--in--the--buggy--atexactly--9.35." And he plunged into his work again. Mrs. Horncastle turned, ran up the staircase, re-entered thesitting-room, and slamming the door behind her, halted in thecentre of the room, panting, erect, beautiful, and menacing. Andshe was alone in this empty room--this deserted hotel. From thisvery room her husband had left her with a brutality on his lips.From this room the fool and liar she had tried to warn had gone toher ruin with a swindling hypocrite. And from this room the onlyman in the world she ever cared for had gone forth bewildered,wronged, and abused, and she knew now she could have kept andcomforted him. Chapter IV. When Philip Demorest left the stagecoach at the cross-roads heturned into the only wayside house, the blacksmith's shop, and,declaring his intention of walking over to Hymettus, askedpermission to leave his hand-bag and wraps until they could be sentafter him. The blacksmith was surprised that this "likelymannered," distinguished-looking "city man" should walkeight miles when he could ride, and tried to dissuade him, offeringhis own buggy. But he was still more surprised when Demorest,laying aside his duster, took off his coat, and, slinging it on hisarm, prepared to set forth with the good-humored assurance that hewould do the distance in a couple of hours and get in in time forsupper. "I wouldn't be too sure of that," said the blacksmithgrimly, "or even of getting a room. They're a stuck-up lot overthere, and they ain't goin' to hump themselves over a chap whocomes traipsin' along the road like any tramp, with nary baggage."But Demorest laughingly accepted the risk, and taking his stoutstick in one hand, pressed a gold coin into the blacksmith's palm,which was, however, declined with such reddening promptness thatDemorest as promptly reddened and apologized. The habits ofEuropean travel had been still strong on him, and he felt a slightpatriotic thrill as he said, with a grave smile, "Thank you, then;and thank you still more for reminding me that I am among my own'people,'" and stepped lightly out into the road. The air was still deliciously cool, but warmer currents from theheated pines began to alternate with the wind from the summit. Hefound himself sometimes walking through a stratum of hot air whichseemed to exhale from the wood itself, while his head and breastwere swept by the mountain breeze. He felt the old intoxication ofthe balmy-scented air again, and the five years of care andhopelessness laid upon his shoulders since he had last breathed itsfragrance slipped from them like a burden. There had been butlittle change here; perhaps the road was wider and the dust laythicker, but the great pines still mounted in serried ranks on theslopes as before, with no gaps in their unending files. Here wasthe spot where the stagecoach had passed them that eventful morningwhen they were coming out of their camp-life into the world ofcivilization; a little further back, the spot where Jack Hamlin hadforced upon him that grim memento of the attempted robbery of theircabin, which he had kept ever since. He half smiled again at thesuperstitious interest that had made him keep it, with theintention of some day returning to bury it, with all recollectionsof the deed, under the site of the old cabin. As he went on in thevivifying influence of the air and scene, new life seemed to coursethrough his veins; his step seemed to grow as elastic as in the olddays of their bitter but hopeful struggle for fortune, when he hadgayly returned from his weekly tramp to Boomville laden with thescant provision procured by their scant earnings and dying credit.Those were the days when her living image still inspired hisheart with faith and hope; when everything was yet possible toyouth and love, and before the irony of fate had given him fortunewith one hand only to withdraw her with the other. It wasstrange and cruel that coming back from his quest of rest andforgetfulness he should find only these youthful and sanguinedreams revive with his reviving vigor. He walked on more hurriedlyas if to escape them, and was glad to be diverted by one or twocarryalls and char-abancs filled with gayly dressed pleasureparties--evidently visitors to Hymettus--which passed him on theroad. Here were the first signs of change. He recalled the train ofpack-mules of the old days, the file of pole-and-basket carryingChinese, the squaw with the papoose strapped to her shoulder, orthe wandering and foot-sore prospector, who were the only wayfarershe used to meet. He contrasted their halts and friendly greetingswith the insolent curiosity or undisguised contempt of the carriagefolk, and smiled as he thought of the warning of the blacksmith.But this did not long divert him; he found himself again returningto his previous thought. Indeed, the face of a young girl in one ofthe carriages had quite startled him with its resemblance to an oldmemory of his lost love as he saw her,--her frail, pale eleganceencompassed in laces as she leaned back in her drive through FifthAvenue, with eyes that lit up and became transfigured only as hepassed. He tried to think of his useless quest in search of herlast resting- place abroad; how he had been baffled by theopposition of her surviving relations, already incensed by thethought that her decline had been the effect of her hopelesspassion. He tried to recall the few frigid lines that reconveyed tohim the last letter he had sent her, with the announcement of herdeath and the hope that "his persecutions" would now cease. A wildidea had sometimes come to him out of the very insufficiency of hisknowledge of this climax, but he had always put it aside as aprecursor of that madness which might end his ceaseless thought.And now it was returning to him, here, thousands of miles away fromwhere she was peacefully sleeping, and even filling him with thevigor of youthful hope. The brief mountain twilight was giving way now to the radianceof the rising moon. He endeavored to fix his thoughts upon hispartners who were to meet him at Hymettus after these long years ofseparation. Hymettus! He recalled now the odd coincidence that he hadmischievously used as a gag to his questioning fellow traveler; butnow he had really come from a villa near Athens to find his oldhouse thus classically rechristened after it, and thought of itwith a gravity he had not felt before. He wondered who had namedit. There was no suggestion of the soft, sensuous elegance of theland he had left in those great heroics of nature before him. Thoseenormous trees were no woods for fauns or dryads; they had theirown godlike majesty of bulk and height, and as he at last climbedthe summit and saw the dark-helmeted head of Black Spur before him,and beyond it the pallid, spiritual cloud of the Sierras, he didnot think of Olympus. Yet for a moment he was startled, as heturned to the right, by the Doric-columned facade of a templepainted by the moonbeams and framed in an opening of the dark woodsbefore him. It was not until he had reached it that he saw that itwas the new wooden post-office of Heavy Tree Hill. And now the buildings of the new settlement began to faintlyappear. But the obscurity of the shadow and the equally disturbingunreality of the moonlight confused him in his attempts torecognize the old landmarks. A broad and well-kept winding road hadtaken the place of the old steep, but direct trail to his cabin. Hehad walked for some moments in uncertainty, when a sudden sweep ofthe road brought the full crest of the hill above and before him,crowned with a tiara of lights, overtopping a long base of flashingwindows. That was all that was left of Heavy Tree Hill. The oldforeground of buckeye and odorous ceanothus was gone. Even thegreat grove of pines behind it had vanished. There was already a stir of life in the road, and he could seefigures moving slowly along a kind of sterile, formal terracespread with a few dreary marble vases and plaster statues which hadreplaced the natural slope and the great quartz buttresses ofoutcrop that supported it. Presently he entered a gate, and soonfound himself in the carriage drive leading to the hotel veranda. Anumber of fair promenaders were facing the keen mountain night windin wraps and furs. Demorest had replaced his coat, but his bootswere red with dust, and as he ascended the steps he could see thathe was eyed with some superciliousness by the guests and withconsiderable suspicion by the servants. One of the latter wasapproaching him with an insolent smile when a figure darted fromthe vestibule, and, brushing the waiter aside, seized Demorest'stwo hands in his and held him at arm's length. "Demorest, old man!" "Stacy, old chap!" "But where's your team? I've had all the spare hostlers andhall- boys listening for you at the gate. And where's Barker? Whenhe found you'd given the dead-cut to the railroad--hisrailroad, you know--he loped over to Boomville after you." Demorest briefly explained that he had walked by the old roadand probably missed him. But by this time the waiters, crushed bythe spectacle of this travel-worn stranger's affectionate receptionby the great financial magnate, were wildly applying their brushesand handkerchiefs to his trousers and boots until Stacy again sweptthem away. "Get off, all of you! Now, Phil, you come with me. The house isfull, but I've made the manager give you a lady's drawing-roomsuite. When you telegraphed you'd meet us here there was nochance to get anything else. It's really Mrs. Van Loo's familysuite; but they were sent for to go to Marysville yesterday, and sowe'll run you in for the night." "But"--protested Demorest. "Nonsense!" said Stacy, dragging him away. "We'll pay for it;and I reckon the old lady won't object to taking her share of thedamage either, or she isn't Van Loo's mother. Come." Demorest felt himself hurried forward by the energetic Stacy,preceded by the obsequious manager, through a corridor to ahandsomely furnished suite, into whose bathroom Stacy incontinentlythrust him. "There! Wash up; and by the time you're ready Barker ought to beback, and we'll have supper. It's waiting for us in the otherroom." "But how about Barker, the dear boy?" persisted Demorest,holding open the door. "Tell me, is he well and happy?" "About as well as we all are," said Stacy quickly, yet with acertain dry significance. "Never mind now; wait until you seehim." The door closed. When Demorest had finished washing, and wipedaway the last red stain of the mountain road, he found Stacy seatedby the window of the larger sitting-room. In the centre a table wasspread for supper. A bright fire of hickory logs burnt on a marblehearth between two large windows that gave upon the distant outlineof Black Spur. As Stacy turned towards him, by the light of theshaded lamp and flickering fire, Demorest had a good look at theface of his old friend and partner. It was as keen and energetic asever, with perhaps an even more hawk-like activity visible in theeye and nostril; but it was more thoughtful and reticent in thelines of the mouth under the closely clipped beard and mustache,and when he looked up, at first there were two deep lines orfurrows across his low broad forehead. Demorest fancied, too, thatthere was a little of the old fighting look in his eye, but itsoftened quickly as his friend approached, and he burst out withhis curt but honest single-syllabled laugh. "Ha! You look a littleless like a roving Apache than you did when you came. I reallythought the waiters were going to chuck you. And you aretanned! Darned if you don't look like the profile stamped on aContinental penny! But here's luck and a welcome back, oldman!" Demorest passed his arm around the neck of his seated partner,and grasping his upraised hand said, looking down with a smile,"And now about Barker." "Oh, Parker, d--n him! He's the same unshakable, unchangeable,ungrow-upable Barker! With the devil's own luck, too! Waltzing intorisks and waltzing out of 'em. With fads enough to put him in theinsane asylum if people did not prefer to keep him out of it tohelp 'em. Always believing in everybody, until they actuallybelieve in themselves, and shake him! And he's got a wife that'smaking a fool of herself, and I shouldn't wonder in time--ofhim!" Demorest pressed his hand over his partner's mouth. "Come, Jim!You know you never really liked that marriage, simply because youthought that old man Carter made a good thing of it. And you neverseem to have taken into consideration the happiness Barker got outof it, for he did love the girl. And he still is happy, ishe not?" he added quickly, as Stacy uttered a grunt. "As happy as a man can be who has his child here with a nursewhile his wife is gallivanting in San Francisco, and throwing hermoney-- and Lord knows what else--away at the bidding of asmooth-tongued, shady operator." "Does he complain of it?" asked Demorest. "Not he; the fool trusts her!" said Stacy curtly. Demorest laughed. "That is happiness! Come, Jim! don't let usbegrudge him that. But I've heard that his affairs have againprospered." "He built this railroad and this hotel. The bank owns both now.He didn't care to keep money in them after they were a success;said he wasn't an engineer nor a hotel-keeper, and drew it out tofind something new. But here he comes," he added, as a horsemandashed into the drive before the hotel. "Question him yourself. Youknow you and he always get along best without me." In another moment Barker had burst into the room, and in hisfirst tempestuous greeting of Demorest the latter saw little changein his younger partner as he held him at arm's length to look athim. "Why, Barker boy, you haven't got a bit older since the daywhen-- you remember--you went over to Boomville to cash your bonds,and then came back and burst upon us lik e this to tell us you werea beggar." "Yes," laughed Barker, "and all the while you fellows wereholding four aces up your sleeve in the shape of the bigstrike." "And you, Georgy, old boy," returned Demorest, swinging Barker'stwo hands backwards and forwards, "were holding a royal flush upyours in the shape of your engagement to Kitty." The fresh color died out of Barker's cheek even while the franklaugh was still on his mouth. He turned his face for a momenttowards the window, and a swift and almost involuntary glancepassed between the others. But he almost as quickly turned hisglistening eyes back to Demorest again, and said eagerly, "Yes,dear Kitty! You shall see her and the baby to-morrow." Then they fell upon the supper with the appetites of the Past,and for some moments they all talked eagerly and even noisilytogether, all at the same time, with even the spirits of the Past.They recalled every detail of their old life; eagerly andimpetuously recounted the old struggles, hopes, anddisappointments, gave the strange importance of schoolboys tounimportant events, and a mystic meaning to a shibboleth of theirown; roared over old jokes with a delight they had never sincegiven to new; reawakened idiotic nicknames and bywords with intenseenjoyment; grew grave, anxious, and agonized over forgotten names,trifling dates, useless distances, ineffective records, and feeblechronicles of their domestic economy. It was the thoughtful andmelancholy Demorest who remembered the exact color and price paidfor a certain shirt bought from a Greaser peddler amidst the envyof his companions; it was the financial magnate, Stacy, who couldinform them what were the exact days they had saleratus bread andwhen flapjacks; it was the thoughtless and mercurial Barker whorecalled with unheard-of accuracy, amidst the applause of theothers, the full name of the Indian squaw who assisted at theirwashing. Even then they were almost feverishly loath to leave thesubject, as if the Past, at least, was secure to them still, andthey were even doubtful of their own free and full accord in thePresent. Then they slipped rather reluctantly into their laterexperiences, but with scarcely the same freedom or spontaneity; andit was noticeable that these records were elicited from Barker byStacy or from Stacy by Barker for the information of Demorest,often with chaffing and only under good-humored protest. "TellDemorest how you broke the 'Copper Ring,'" from the admiringBarker, or, "Tell Demorest how your d----d foolishness in buying upthe right and plant of the Ditch Company got you control of therailroad," from the mischievous Stacy, were challenges in point.Presently they left the table, and, to the astonishment of thewaiters who removed the cloth, common brier- wood pipes,thoughtfully provided by Barker in commemoration of the Past, werelit, and they ranged themselves in armchairs before the fire quiteunconsciously in their old attitudes. The two windows on eitherside of the hearth gave them the same view that the open door ofthe old cabin had made familiar to them, the league-long valleybelow the shadowy bulk of the Black Spur rising in the distance,and, still more remote, the pallid snow-line that soared evenbeyond its crest. As in the old time, they were for many moments silent; and then,as in the old time, it was the irrepressible Barker who broke thesilence. "But Stacy does not tell you anything about his friend,the beautiful Mrs. Horncastle. You know he's the guardian of one ofthe finest women in California--a woman as noble and generous asshe is handsome. And think of it! He's protecting her from herbrute of a husband, and looking after her property. Isn't it goodand chivalrous of him?" The irrepressible laughter of the two men brought only wonderand reproachful indignation into the widely opened eyes of Barker.He was perfectly sincere. He had been thinking of Stacy'sadmiration for Mrs. Horncastle in his ride from Boomville, and,strange to say, yet characteristic of his nature, it was equallythe natural outcome of his interview with her and the singulareffect she had upon him. That he (Barker) thoroughly sympathizedwith her only convinced him that Stacy must feel the same for her,and that, no doubt, she must respond to him equally. And how nobleit was in his old partner, with his advantages of position in theworld and his protecting relations to her, not to avail himself ofthis influence upon her generous nature. If he himself--a marriedman and the husband of Kitty--was so conscious of her charm, howmuch greater it must be to the free and inexperiencedStacy. The italics were in Barker's thought; for in those matters hefelt that Stacy and even Demorest, occupied in other things, hadnot his knowledge. There was no idea or consciousness of heroicallysacrificing himself or Mrs. Horncastle in this. I am afraid therewas not even an idea of a superior morality in himself in giving upthe possibility of loving her. Ever since Stacy had first seen herhe had fancied that Stacy liked her,--indeed, Kitty fancied it,too,--and it seemed almost providential now that he should know howto assist his old partner to happiness. For it was inconceivablethat Stacy should not be able to rescue this woman from hershameful bonds, or that she should not consent to it through his(Barker's) arguments and entreaties. To a "champion of dames" thisseemed only right and proper. In his unfailing optimism hetranslated Stacy's laugh as embarrassment and Demorest's as onlyignorance of the real question. But Demorest had noticed, if he hadnot, that Stacy's laugh was a little nervously prolonged for a manof his temperament, and that he had cast a very keen glance atBarker. A messenger arriving with a telegram brought from Boomvillecalled Stacy momentarily away, and Barker was not slow to takeadvantage of his absence. "I wish, Phil," he said, hitching his chair closer to Demorest,"that you would think seriously of this matter, and try to persuadeStacy--who, I believe, is more interested in Mrs. Horncastle thanhe cares to show--to put a little of that determination in lovethat he has shown in business. She's an awfully fine woman, and inevery way suited to him, and he is letting an absurd sense of prideand honor keep him from influencing her to get rid of herimpossible husband. There's no reason," continued Barker in a burstof enthusiastic simplicity, "that because she has found someone she likes better, and who would treat her better, that sheshould continue to stick to that beast whom all California wouldgladly see her divorced from. I never could understand that kind ofargument, could you?" Demorest looked at his companion's glowing cheek and kindlingeye with a smile. "A good deal depends upon the side from which youargue. But, frankly, Barker boy, though I think I know you in allyour phases, I am not prepared yet to accept you as a match-maker!However, I'll think it over, and find out something more of thisfrom your goddess, who seems to have bewitched you both. But whatdoes Mistress Kitty say to your admiration?" Barker's face clouded, but instantly brightened. "Oh, they'rethe best of friends; they're quite like us, you know, even to larksthey have together." He stopped and colored at his slip. ButDemorest, who had noticed his change of expression, was moreconcerned at the look of half incredulity and half suspicion withwhich Stacy, who had re-entered the room in time to hear Barker'sspeech, was regarding his unconscious younger partner. "I didn't know that Mrs. Horncastle and Mrs. Barker were suchfriends," he said dryly as he sat down again. But his facepresently became so abstracted that Demorest said gayly:-"Well, Jim, I'm glad I'm not a Napoleon of Finance! I couldn'tstand it to have my privacy or my relaxation broken in upon at anymoment, as yours was just now. What confounded somersault in stockshas put that face on you?" Stacy looked up quickly with his brief laugh. "I'm afraid you'dbe none the wiser if I told you. That was a pony express messengerfrom New York. You remember how Barker, that night of the strike,when we were sitting together here, or very near here, proposedthat we ought to have a password or a symbol to call us together incase of emergency, for each other's help? Well, let us say I havetwo partners, one in Europe and one in New York. That was mypassword." "And, I hope, no more serious than ours," added Demorest. Stacy laughed his short laugh. Nevertheless, the conversationdragged again. The feverish gayety of the early part of the eveningwas gone, and they seemed to be suffering from the reaction. Theyfell into their old attitudes, looking from the firelight to thedistant bulk of Black Spur without a word. The occasional sound ofthe voices of promenaders on the veranda at last ceased; there wasthe noise of the shutting of heavy doors below, and Barkerrose. "You'll excuse me, boys; but I must go and say good-night tolittle Sta, and see that he's all right. I haven't seen him since Igot back. But"--to Demorest--"you'll see him to-morrow, when Kittycomes. It is as much as my life is worth to show him before shecertifies him as being presentable." He paused, and then added:"Don't wait up, you fellows, for me; sometimes the little chapwon't let me go. It's as if he thought, now Kitty's away, I was allhe had. But I'll be up early in the morning and see you. I dare sayyou and Stacy have a heap to say to each other on business, and youwon't miss me. So I'll say good-night." He laughed lightly, pressedthe hands of his partners in his usual hearty fashion, and went outof the room, leaving the gloom a little deeper than before. It wasso unusual for Barker to be the first to leave anybody or anythingin trouble that they both noticed it. "But for that," saidDemorest, turning to Stacy as the door closed, "I should say thedear fellow was absolutely unchanged. But he seemed a littleanxious tonight." "I shouldn't wonder. He's got two women on his mind,--as if onewas not enough." "I don't understand. You say his wife is foolish, and thisother"-"Never mind that now," interrupted Stacy, getting up and puttingdown his pipe. "Let's talk a little business. That other stuff willkeep." "By all means," said Demorest, with a smile, settling down intohis chair a little wearily, however. "I forgot business. And Iforgot, my dear Jim, to congratulate you. I've heard all about you,even in New York. You're the man who, according to everybody, nowholds the finances of the Pacific Slope in his hands. And," headded, leaning affectionately towards his old partner, "I don'tknow any one better equipped in honesty, straightforwardness, andcourage for such a responsibility than you." "I only wish," said Stacy, looking thoughtfully at Demorest,"that I didn't hold nearly a million of your money included in thefinances of the Pacific Slope." "Why," said the smiling Demorest, "as long as I amsatisfied?" "Because I am not. If you're satisfied, I'm a wretched idiot andnot fit for my position. Now, look here, Phil. When you wrote me tosell out your shares in the Wheat Trust I was a little staggered. Iknew your gait, my boy, and I knew, too, that, while you didn'tknow enough to trust your own opinions or feeling, you knew toomuch to trust any one's opinion that wasn't first-class. So Ireckoned you had the straight tip; but I didn't see it. Now, Iought not to have been staggered if I was fit for your confidence,or, if I was staggered, I ought to have had enough confidence inmyself not to mind you. See?" "I admit your logic, old man," said Demorest, with an amusedface, "but I don't see your premises. When did I tell you tosell out?" "Two days ago. You wrote just after you arrived." "I have never written to you since I arrived. I only telegraphedto you to know where we should meet, and received your message tocome here." "You never wrote me from San Francisco?" "Never." Stacy looked concernedly at his friend. Was he in his rightmind? He had heard of cases where melancholy brooding on a fixedidea had affected the memory. He took from his pocket alettercase, and selecting a letter handed it to Demorest withoutspeaking. Demorest glanced at it, turned it over, read its contents, andin a grave voice said, "There is something wrong here. It is likemy handwriting, but I never wrote the letter, nor has it been in myhand before." Stacy sprang to his side. "Then it's a forgery!" "Wait a moment." Demorest, who, although very grave, was themore collected of the two, went to a writing-desk, selected a sheetof paper, and took up a pen. "Now," he said, "dictate that letterto me." Stacy began, Demorest's pen rapidly following him:-"Dear Jim,--On receipt of this get rid of my Wheat Trustshares at whatever figure you can. From the way things pointed inNew York"-"Stop!" interrupted Demorest. "Well?" said Stacy impatiently. "Now, my dear Jim," said Demorest plaintively, "when did youever know me to write such a sentence as 'the way thingspointed'?" "Let me finish reading," said Stacy. This literary sensitivenessat such a moment seemed little short of puerility to the man ofbusiness. "From the way things pointed in New York," continued Stacy, "andfrom private advices received, this seems to be the only prudentcourse before the feathers begin to fly. Longing to see you againand the dear old stamping-ground at Heavy Tree. Love to Barker. Hasthe dear old boy been at any fresh crank lately? "Yours, Phil Demorest." The dictation and copy finished together. Demorest laid thefreshly written sheet beside the letter Stacy had produced. Theywere very much alike and yet quite distinct from each other. Onlythe signature seemed identical. "That's the invariable mistake with the forger," said Demorest;"he always forgets that signatures ought to be identical with thetext rather than with each other." But Stacy did not seem to hear this or require further proof.His face was quite gray and his lips compressed until lost in hisclosely set beard as he gazed fixedly out of the window. For thefirst time, really concerned and touched, Demorest laid his handgently on his shoulder. "Tell me, Jim, how much does this mean to you apart from me?Don't think of me." "I don't know yet," said Stacy slowly. "That's the trouble. AndI won't know until I know who's at the bottom of it. Does anybodyknow of your affairs with me?" "No one." "No confidential friend, eh?" "None." "No one who has access to your secrets? No--no--woman? Excuseme, Phil," he said, as a peculiar look passed over Demorest's face,"but this is business." "No," he returned, with that gentleness that used to frightenthem in the old days, "it's ignorance. You fellows always say'Cherchez la femme' when you can't say anything else. Come now," hewent on more brightly, "look at the letter. Here's a man,commercially educated, for he has used the usual business formulas,'on receipt of this,' and 'advices received,' which I won't merelysay I don't use, but which few but commercial men use. Next, here'sa man who uses slang, not only ineptly, but artificially, to givethe letter the easy, familiar turn it hasn't from beginning to end.I need only say, my dear Stacy, that I don't write slang to you,but that nobody who understands slang ever writes it in that way.And then the knowledge of my opinion of Barker is such as might begained from the reading of my letters by a person who couldn'tcomprehend my feelings. Now, let me play inquisitor for a fewmoments. Has anybody access to my letters to you?" "No one. I keep them locked up in a cabinet. I only makememorandums of your instructions, which I give to my clerks, butnever your letters." "But your clerks sometimes see you make memorandums fromthem?" "Yes, but none of them have the ability to do this sort ofthing, nor the opportunity of profiting by it." "Has any woman--now this is not retaliation, my dear Jim, for Ifancy I detect a woman's cleverness and a woman's stupidity in thisforgery--any access to your secrets or my letters? A woman'svillainy is always effective for the moment, but always defectivewhen probed." The look of scorn which passed over Stacy's face was quite asdistinct as Demorest's previous protest, as he said contemptuously,"I'm not such a fool as to mix up petticoats with my business,whatever I do." "Well, one thing more. I have told you that in my opinion theforger has a commercial education or style, that he doesn't know menor Barker, and don't understand slang. Now, I have to add whatmust have occurred to you, Jim, that the forger is either a coward,or his object is not altogether mercenary: for the same abilitydisplayed in this letter would on the signature alone-- had it beenon a check or draft--have drawn from your bank twenty times theamount concerned. Now, what is the actual loss by thisforgery?" "Very little; for you've got a good price for your stocks,considering the depreciation in realizing suddenly on so large anamount. I told my broker to sell slowly and in small quantities toavoid a panic. But the real loss is the control of the stock." "But the amount I had was not enough to affect that," saidDemorest. "No, but I was carrying a large amount myself, and together wecontrolled the market, and now I have unloaded, too." "You sold out! and with your doubts?" said Demorest. "That's just it," said Stacy, looking steadily at hiscompanion's face, "because I had doubts, and it won't do forme to have them. I ought either to have disobeyed your letter andkept your stock and my own, or have done just what I did. I mighthave hedged on my own stock, but I don't believe in hedging. Thereis no middle course to a man in my business if he wants to keep atthe top. No great success, no great power, was ever created byit." Demorest smiled. "Yet you accept the alternative also, which isruin?" "Precisely," said Stacy. "When you returned the other day youwere bound to find me what I was or a beggar. But nothing between.However," he added, "this has nothing to do with the forgery, or,"he smiled grimly, "everything to do with it. Hush! Barker iscoming." There was a quick step along the corridor approaching the room.The next moment the door flew open to the bounding step andlaughing face of Barker. Whatever of thoughtfulness or despondencyhe had carried from the room with him was completely gone. With hisamazing buoyancy and power of reaction he was there again in hisusual frank, cheerful simplicity. "I thought I'd come in and say goodnight," he began, with alaugh. "I got Sta asleep after some high jinks we had together, andthen I reckoned it wasn't the square thing to leave just you twotogether, the first night you came. And I remembered I had somebusiness to talk over, too, so I thought I'd chip in again and takea hand. It's only the shank of the evening yet," he continuedgayly, "and we ought to sit up at least long enough to see the oldsnow-line vanish, as we did in old times. But I say," he addedsuddenly, as he glanced from the one to the other, "you've beenhaving it pretty strong already. Why, you both look as you did thatnight the backwater of the South Fork came into our cabin. What'sup?" "Nothing," said Demorest hastily, as he caught a glance ofStacy's impatient face. "Only all business is serious, Barker boy,though you don't seem to feel it so." "I reckon you're right there," said Barker, with a chuckle."People always laugh, of course, when I talk business, so it mightmake it a little livelier for you and more of a change if I chippedin now. Only I don't know which you'll do. Hand me a pipe. Well,"he continued, filling the pipe Demorest shoved towards him, "yousee, I was in Sacramento yesterday, and I went into Van Loo'sbranch office, as I heard he was there, and I wanted to find outsomething about Kitty's investments, which I don't think he'smanaging exactly right. He wasn't there, however, but as I waswaiting I heard his clerks talk about a drop in the Wheat Trust,and that there was a lot of it put upon the market. They seemed tothink that something had happened, and it was going down stillfurther. Now I knew it was your pet scheme, and that Phil had a lotof shares in it, too, so I just slipped out and went to a broker'sand told him to buy all he could of it. And, by Jove! I was alittle taken aback when I found what I was in for, for everybodyseemed to have unloaded, and I found I hadn't money enough to paymargins, but I knew that Demorest was here, and I reckoned on hisseeing me through." He stopped and colored, but added hopefully, "Ireckon I'm safe, anyway, for just as the thing was over those sameclerks of Van Loo's came bounding into the office to buy upeverything. And offered to take it off my hands and pay themargins." "And you?" said both men eagerly, and in a breath. Barker stared at them, and reddened and paled by turns. "I heldon," he stammered. "You see, boys"-Both men had caught him by the arms. "How much have you got?"they said, shaking him as if to precipitate the answer. "It's a heap!" said Barker. "It's a ghastly lot now I think ofit. I'm afraid I'm in for fifty thousand, if a cent." To his infinite astonishment and delight he was alternatelyhugged and tossed backwards and forwards between the two men quitein the fashion of the old days. Breathless but laughing, he atlength gasped out, "What does it all mean?" "Tell him everything, Jim,--everything," said Demorestquickly. Stacy briefly related the story of the forgery, and then laidthe letter and its copy before him. But Barker only read theforgery. "How could you, Stacy--one of the three partners of HeavyTree--be deceived! Don't you see it's Phil's handwriting--but itisn't Phil!" "But have you any idea who it is?" said Stacy. "Not me," said Barker, with widely opened eyes. "You see it mustbe somebody whom we are familiar with. I can't imagine such ascoundrel." "How did you know that Demorest had stock?" askedStacy. "He told me in one of his letters and advised me to go into it.But just then Kitty wanted money, I think, and I didn't go in." "I remember it," struck in Demorest. "But surely it was nosecret. My name would be on the transfer books for any one tosee." "Not so," said Stacy quickly. "You were one of the originalshareholders; there was no transfer, and the books as well as theshares of the company were in my hands." "And your clerks?" added Demorest. Stacy was silent. After a pause he asked, "Did anybody ever seethat letter, Barker?" "No one but myself and Kitty." "And would she be likely to talk of it?" continued Stacy. "Of course not. Why should she? Whom could she talk to?" Yet hestopped suddenly, and then with his characteristic reaction added,with a laugh, "Why no, certainly not." "Of course, everybody knew that you had bought the shares atSacramento?" "Yes. Why, you know I told you the Van Loo clerks came to me andwanted to take it off my hands." "Yes, I remember; the Van Loo clerks; they knew it, of course,"said Stacy with a grim smile. "Well, boys," he said, with suddenalacrity, "I'm going to turn in, for by sun-up to-morrow I must beon my way to catch the first train at the Divide for 'Frisco. We'llhunt this thing down together, for I reckon we're all concerned init," he added, looking at the others, "and once more we're partnersas in the old times. Let us even say that I've given Barker'ssignal or password," he added, with a laugh, "and we'll sticktogether. Barker boy," he went on, grasping his younger partner'shand, "your instinct has saved us this time; d----d if I don'tsometimes think it better than any other man's sabe; only," hedropped his voice slightly, "I wish you had it in other things thanfinance. Phil, I've a word to say to you alone before I go.I may want you to follow me." "But what can I do?" said Barker eagerly. "You're not going toleave me out." "You've done quite enough for us, old man," said Stacy, layinghis hand on Barker's shoulder. "And it may be for us to dosomething for you. Trot off to bed now, like a good boy.I'll keep you posted when the time comes." Shoving the protesting and leave-taking Barker with paternalfamiliarity from the room, he closed the door and facedDemorest. "He's the best fellow in the world," said Stacy quietly, "andhas saved the situation; but we mustn't trust too much to him forthe present--not even seem to." "Nonsense, man!" said Demorest impatiently. "You're letting yourprejudices go too far. Do you mean to say that you suspect hiswife." "D--n his wife!" said Stacy almost savagely. "Leave her out ofthis. It's Van Loo that I suspect. It was Van Loo who I knew wasbehind it, who expected to profit by it, and now we have losthim." "But how?" said Demorest, astonished. "How?" repeated Stacy impatiently. "You know what Barker said?Van Loo, either through stupidity, fright, or the wish to get thelowest prices, was too late to buy up the market. If he had, wemight have openly declared the forgery, and if it was known that heor his friends had profited by it, even if we could not have provenhis actual complicity, we could at least have made it too hot forhim in California. But," said Stacy, looking intently at hisfriend, "do you know how the case stands now?" "Well," said Demorest, a little uneasily under his friend's keeneyes, "we've lost that chance, but we've kept control of thestock." "You think so? Well, let me tell you how the case stands and theprice we pay for it," said Stacy deliberately, as he folded hisarms and gazed at Demorest. "You and I, well known as old friendsand former partners, for no apparent reason--for we cannot provethe forgery now--have thrown upon the market all our stock, withthe usual effect of depreciating it. Another old friend and formerpartner has bought it in and sent up the price. A common trick, avulgar trick, but not a trick worthy of James Stacy or Stacy'sBank!" "But why not simply declare the forgery without making anyspecific charge against Van Loo?" "Do you imagine, Phil, that any man would believe it, and thestory of a providentially appointed friend like Barker who saved usfrom loss? Why, all California, from Cape Mendocino to Los Angeles,would roar with laughter over it! No! We must swallow it and thereputation of 'jockeying' with the Wheat Trust, too. That Trust'sas good as done for, for the present! Now you know why I didn'twant poor Barker to know it, nor have much to do with our searchfor the forger." "It would break the dear fellow's heart if he knew it," saidDemorest. "Well, it's to save him from having his heart broken furtherthat I intend to find out this forger," said Stacy grimly."Good-night, Phil! I'll telegraph to you when I want you, and thencome!" With another grip of the hand he left Demorest to his thoughts.In the first excitement of meeting his old partners, and in thelater discovery of the forgery, Demorest had been diverted from hisold sorrow, and for the time had forgotten it in sympatheticinterest with the present. But, to his horror, when alone again, hefound that interest growing as remote and vapid as the stories theyhad laughed over at the table, and even the excitement of theforged letter and its consequences began to be as unreal, asimpotent, as shadowy, as the memory of the attempted robbery in theold cabin on that very spot. He was ashamed of that selfishnesswhich still made him cling to this past, so much his own, that heknew it debarred him from the human sympathy of his comrades. Andeven Barker, in whose courtship and marriage he had tried toresuscitate his youthful emotions and condone his selfisherrors--even the suggestion of his unhappiness only touched himvaguely. He would no longer be a slave to the Past, or the memorythat had deluded him a few hours ago. He walked to the window;alas, there was the same prospect that had looked upon his dreams,had lent itself to his old visions. There was the eternal outlineof the hills; there rose the steadfast pines; there was no changein them. It was this surrounding constancy of nature thathad affected him. He turned away and entered the bedroom. Here hesuddenly remembered that the mother of this vague enemy, VanLoo,--for his feeling towards him was still vague, as few menreally hate the personality they don't know,--had only momentarilyvacated it, and to his distaste of his own intrusion was now addedthe profound irony of his sleeping in the same bed lately occupiedby the mother of the man who was suspected of having forged hisname. He smiled faintly and looked around the apartment. It washandsomely furnished, and although it still had much of thecharacterlessness of the hotel room, it was distinctly flavored byits last occupant, and still brightened by that mysterious instinctof the sex which is inevitable. Where a man would have simply lefthis forgotten slippers or collars there was a glass of stillunfaded flowers; the cold marble top of the dressing-table waslittered with a few linen and silk toilet covers; and on themantel-shelf was a sheaf of photographs. He walked towards themmechanically, glanced at them abstractedly, and then stoppedsuddenly with a beating heart. Before him was the picture of hispast, the photograph of the one woman who had filled his life! He cast a hurried glance around the room as if he half expectedto see the original start up before him, and then eagerly seized itand hurried with it to the light. Yes! yes! It was she,--sheas she had lived in his actual memory; she as she had lived in hisdream. He saw her sweet eyes, but the frightened, innocent troublehad passed from them; there was the sensitive elegance of hergraceful figure in evening dress; but the figure was fuller andmaturer. Could he be mistaken by some wonderful resemblance actingupon his too willing brain? He turned the photograph over. No;there on the other side, written in her own childlike hand,endeared and familiar to his recollection, was her own name, andthe date! It was surely she! How did it come there? Did the Van Loos know her? It was takenin Venice; there was the address of the photographers. The Van Looswere foreigners, he remembered; they had traveled; perhaps had mether there in 1858: that was the date in her handwriting; that wasthe date on the photographer's address--1858. Suddenly he laid thephotograph down, took with trembling fingers a letter-case from hispocket, opened it, and laid his last letter to her, indorsed withthe cruel announcement of her death, before him on the table. Hepassed his hand across his forehead and opened the letter. It wasdated 1856! The photograph must have been taken two yearsafter her alleged death! He examined it again eagerly, fixedly, tremblingly. A wildimpulse to summon Barker or Stacy on the spot was restrained withdifficulty and only when he remembered that they could not helphim. Then he began to oscillate between a joy and a new fear, whichnow, for the first time, began to dawn upon him. If the news of herdeath had been a fiendish trick of her relations, why hadshe never sought him? It was not ill health, restraint, norfear; there was nothing but happiness and the strength of youth andbeauty in that face and figure. He had not disappeared fromthe world; he was known of men; more, his memorable good fortunemust have reached her ears. Had he wasted all these miserable yearsto find himself abandoned, forgotten, perhaps even a dupe? For thefirst time the sting of jealousy entered his soul. Perhaps,unconsciously to himself, his strange and varying feelings thatafternoon had been the gathering climax of his mental condition; atall events, in the sudden revulsion there was a shaking off of hisapathetic thought; there was activity, even if it was the activityof pain. Here was a mystery to be solved, a secret to bediscovered, a past wrong to be exposed, an enemy or, perhaps, evena faithless love to be punished. Perhaps he had even saved hisreason at the expense of his love. He quickly replaced thephotograph on the mantel-shelf, returned the letter carefully tohis pocket-book,--no longer a souvenir of the past, but a proof oftreachery,--and began to mechanically undress himself. He was quitecalm now, and went to bed with a strange sense of relief, and sleptas he had not slept since he was a boy. The whole hotel had sunk to rest by this time, and then beganthe usual slow, nightly invasion and investment of it by nature.For all its broad verandas and glaring terraces, its long ranges ofwindows and glittering crest of cupola and tower, it graduallysuccumbed to the more potent influences around it, and became theirsport and playground. The mountain breezes from the distant summitswept down upon its flimsy structure, shook the great glass windowsas with a strong hand, and sent the balm of bay and spruce throughevery chink and cranny. In the great hall and corridors the carpetsbillowed with the intruding blast along the floors; there was themurmur of the pines in the passages, and the damp odor of leaves inthe dining-room. There was the cry of night birds in the creakingcupola, and the swift rush of dark wings past bedroom windows.Lissome shapes crept along the terraces between the stolid woodenstatues, or, bolder, scampered the whole length of the greatveranda. In the lulling of the wind the breath of the woods waseverywhere; even the aroma of swelling sap--as if the ghastlystumps on the deforested slope behind the hotel were bleedingafresh in the dewless night--stung the eyes and nostrils of thesleepers. It was, perhaps, from such cause as this that Barker wasawakened suddenly by the voice of the boy from the crib beside him,crying, "Mamma! mamma!" Taking the child in his arms, he comfortedhim, saying she would come that morning, and showed him the faintdawn already veiling with color the ghostly pallor of the Sierras.As they looked at it a great star shot forth from its brethren andfell. It did not fall perpendicularly, but seemed for some secondsto slip along the slopes of Black Spur, gleaming through the treeslike a chariot of fire. It pleased the child to say that it was thelight of mamma's buggy that was fetching her home, and it pleasedthe father to encourage the boy's fancy. And talking thus inconfidential whispers they fell asleep once more, the father--himself a child in so many things--holding the smaller and frailerhand in his. They did not know that on the other side of the Divide the wifeand mother, scared, doubting, and desperate, by the side of herscared, doubting, and desperate accomplice, was flying down theslope on her night-long road to ruin. Still less did they knowthat, with the early singing birds, a careless horseman, emergingfrom the trail as the dust-stained buggy dashed past him, glancedat it with a puzzled air, uttered a quiet whistle of surprise, andthen, wheeling his horse, gayly cantered after it. Chapter V. In the exercise of his arduous profession, Jack Hamlin had satup all night in the magnolia saloon of the Divide, and as it wasrather early to go to bed, he had, after his usual habit, shakenoff the sedentary attitude and prepared himself for sleep by afierce preliminary gallop in the woods. Besides, he had been alarge winner, and on those occasions he generally isolated himselffrom his companions to avoid foolish altercations withinexperienced players. Even in fighting Jack was fastidious, anddid not like to have his stomach for a real difficulty distendedand vitiated by small preliminary indulgences. He was just emerging from the wood into the highroad when abuggy dashed past him, containing a man and a woman. The woman worea thick veil; the man was almost undistinguishable from dust. Theglimpse was momentary, but dislike has a keen eye, and in thatglimpse Mr. Hamlin recognized Van Loo. The situation was equallyclear. The bent heads and averted faces, the dust collected in theheedlessness of haste, the early hour,--indicating a night-longflight,--all made it plain to him that Van Loo was running awaywith some woman. Mr. Hamlin had no moral scruples, but he had theethics of a sportsman, which he knew Mr. Van Loo was not. Whetherthe woman was an innocent schoolgirl or an actress, he wassatisfied that Van Loo was doing a mean thing meanly. Mr. Hamlinalso had a taste for mischief, and whether the woman was or was notfair game, he knew that for his purposes Van Loo was. Withthe greatest cheerfulness in the world he wheeled his horse andcantered after them. They were evidently making for the Divide and a fresh horse, orto take the coach due an hour later. It was Mr. Hamlin's presentobject to circumvent this, and, therefore, it was quite in his wayto return. Incidentally, however, the superior speed of his horsegave him the opportunity of frequently lunging towards them at afurious pace, which had the effect of frantically increasing theirown speed, when he would pull up with a silent laugh before he wasfairly discovered, and allow the sound of his rapid horse's hoofsto die out. In this way he amused himself until the straggling townof the Divide came in sight, when, putting his spurs to his horseagain, he managed, under pretense of the animal becomingungovernable, to twice "cross the bows" of the fugitives,compelling them to slacken speed. At the second of these passagesVan Loo apparently lost prudence, and slashing out with his whip,the lash caught slightly on the counter of Hamlin's horse. Mr.Hamlin instantly acknowledged it by lifting his hat gravely, andspeeded on to the hotel, arriving at the steps and throwing himselffrom the saddle exactly as the buggy drove up. With characteristicaudacity, he actually assisted the frightened and eager woman toalight and run into the hotel. But in this action her veil wasaccidentally lifted. Mr. Hamlin instantly recognized the prettywoman who had been pointed out to him in San Francisco as Mrs.Barker, the wife of one of the partners whose fortunes hadinterested him five years ago. It struck him that this was anadditional reason for his interference on Barker's account,although personally he could not conceive why a man should ever tryto prevent a woman from running away from him. But then Mr.Hamlin's personal experiences had been quite the other way. It was enough, however, to cause him to lay his hand lightly onVan Loo's arm as the latter, leaping down, was about to follow Mrs.Barker into the hotel. "You'll have time enough now," saidHamlin. "Time for what?" said Van Loo savagely. "Time to apologize for having cut my horse with your whip," saidJack sweetly. "We don't want to quarrel before a woman." "I've no time for fooling!" said Van Loo, endeavoring topass. But Jack's hand had slipped to Van Loo's wrist, although hestill smiled cheerfully. "Ah! Then you did mean it, and youpropose to give me satisfaction?" Van Loo paled slightly; he knew Jack's reputation as a duelist.But he was desperate. "You see my position," he said hurriedly."I'm in a hurry; I have a lady with me. No man of honor"-"You do me wrong," interrupted Jack, with a pained expression,--"you do, indeed. You are in a hurry--well, I have plenty of time.If you cannot attend to me now, why I will be glad to accompany youand the lady to the next station. Of course," he added, with asmile, "at a proper distance, and without interfering with thelady, whom I am pleased to recognize as the wife of an old friend.It would be more sociable, perhaps, if we had some generalconversation on the road; it would prevent her being alarmed. Imight even be of some use to you. If we are overtaken by herhusband on the road, for instance, I should certainly claim theright to have the first shot at you. Boy!" he called to thehostler, "just sponge out Pancho's mouth, will you, to be readywhen the buggy goes?" And, loosening his grip of Van Loo's wrist,he turned away as the other quickly entered the hotel. But Mr. Van Loo did not immediately seek Mrs. Barker. He hadalready some experience of that lady's nerves and irascibility onthe drive, and had begun to see his error in taking so dangerous animpediment to his flight from the country. And another idea hadcome to him. He had already effected his purpose of compromisingher with him in that flight, but it was still known only to few. Ifhe left her behind for the foolish, doting husband, would not thatdevoted man take her back to avoid a scandal, and even forbear topursue him for his financial irregularities? What weretwenty thousand dollars of Mrs. Barker's money to the scandal ofMrs. Barker's elopement? Again, the failure to realize the forgeryhad left him safe, and Barker was sufficiently potent with the bankand Demorest to hush up that also. Hamlin was now the only obstacleto his flight; but even he would scarcely pursue him if Mrs.Barker were left behind. And it would be easier to elude him if hedid. In his preoccupation Van Loo did not see that he had entered thebar-room, but, finding himself there, he moved towards the bar; aglass of spirits would revive him. As he drank it he saw that theroom was full of rough men, apparently miners or packers--some ofthem Mexican, with here and there a Kanaka or Australian. Two menmore ostentatiously clad, though apparently on equal terms with theothers, were standing in the corner with their backs towards him.From the general silence as he entered he imagined that he had beenthe subject of conversation, and that his altercation with Hamlinhad been overheard. Suddenly one of the two men turned andapproached him. To his consternation he recognized Steptoe,--Steptoe, whom he had not seen for five years until last night, whenhe had avoided him in the courtyard of the Boomville Hotel. Hisfirst instinct was to retreat, but it was too late. And the spiritshad warmed him into temporary recklessness. "You ain't goin' to be backed down by a short-card gambler, areyer?" said Steptoe, with coarse familiarity. "I have a lady with me, and am pressed for time," said Van Looquickly. "He knows it, otherwise he would not have dared"-"Well, look here," said Steptoe roughly. "I ain't particularlysweet on you, as you know; but I and these gentlemen," he added,glancing around the room, "ain't particularly sweet on Mr. JackHamlin neither, and we kalkilate to stand by you if you say so.Now, I reckon you want to get away with the woman, and the quickerthe better, as you're afraid there'll be somebody after you aforelong. That's the way it pans out, don't it? Well, when you're readyto go, and you just tip us the wink, we'll get in a circle roundJack and cover him, and if he starts after you we'll send him on alittle longer journey!--eh, boys?" The men muttered their approval, and one or two drew theirrevolvers from their belts. Van Loo's heart, which had leaped atfirst at this proposal of help, sank at this failure of his littleplan of abandoning Mrs. Barker. He hesitated, and then stammered,"Thank you! Haste is everything with us now; but I shouldn't mindleaving the lady among chivalrous gentlemen like yourselvesfor a few hours only, until I could communicate with my friends andreturn to properly chastise this scoundrel." Steptoe drew in his breath with a slight whistle, and gazed atVan Loo. He instantly understood him. But the plea did not suitSteptoe, who, for purposes of his own, wished to put Mrs. Barkerbeyond her husband's possible reach. He smiled grimly. "I thinkyou'd better take the woman with you," he said. "I don't think," headded in a lower voice, "that the boys would like your leaving her.They're very high-toned, they are!" he concluded ironically. "Then," said Van Loo, with another desperate idea, "could younot let us have saddle-horses instead of the buggy? We could travelfaster, and in the event of pursuit and anything happening tome," he added loftily, "she at least could escape herpursuer's vengeance." This suited Steptoe equally well, as long as the guilty couplefled together, and in the presence of witnesses. But he wasnot deceived by Van Loo's heroic suggestion of self-sacrifice."Quite right," he said sarcastically, "it shall be done, and I'veno doubt one of you will escape. I'll send the horses roundto the back door and keep the buggy in front. That will keep Jackthere, too,-- with the boys handy." But Mr. Hamlin had quite as accurate an idea of Mr. Van Loo'smethods and of his own standing with Steptoe's gang ofroughs as Mr. Steptoe himself. More than that, he also had a holdon a smaller but more devoted and loyal following than Steptoe's.The employees and hostlers of the hotel worshiped him. A singleword of inquiry revealed to him the fact that the buggy wasnot going on, but that Mr. Van Loo and Mrs. Barkerwere--on two horses, a temporary side-saddle having beenconstructed out of a mule's pack- tree. At which Mr. Hamlin, withhis usual audacity, walked into the bar-room, and going to the barleaned carelessly against it. Then turning to the lowering facesaround him, he said, with a flash of his white teeth, "Well, boys,I'm calculating to leave the Divide in a few minutes to follow somefriends in the buggy, and it seems to me only the square thing tostand the liquor for the crowd, without prejudice to any feeling orroughness there may be against me. Everybody who knows me knowsthat I'm generally there when the band plays, and I'm pretty sureto turn up for that sort of thing. So you'll just considerthat I've had a good game on the Divide, and I'm reckoning it'sonly fair to leave a little of it behind me here, to 'sweeten thepot' until I call again. I only ask you, gentlemen, to drinksuccess to my friends in the buggy as early and as often as youcan." He flung two gold pieces on the counter and paused,smiling. He was right in his conjecture. Even the men who would havewillingly "held him up" a moment after, at the bidding of Steptoe,saw no reason for declining a free drink "without prejudice." Andit was a part of the irony of the situation that Steptoe and VanLoo were also obliged to participate to keep in with theirpartisans. It was, however, an opportune diversion to Van Loo, whomanaged to get nearer the door leading to the back entrance of thehotel, and to Mr. Jack Hamlin, who was watching him, as the menclosed up to the bar. The toast was drunk with acclamation, followed by another andyet another. Steptoe and Van Loo, who had kept their heads cool,were both wondering if Hamlin's intention were to intoxicate andincapacitate the crowd at the crucial moment, and Steptoe smiledgrimly over his superior knowledge of their alcoholic capacity. Butsuddenly there was the greater diversion of a shout from the road,the on-coming of a cloud of red dust, and the halt of anothervehicle before the door. This time it was no jaded single horse anddust-stained buggy, but a double team of four spirited trotters,whose coats were scarcely turned with foam, before a light stationwagon containing a single man. But that man was instantlyrecognized by every one of the outside loungers and stable-boys aswell as the staring crowd within the saloon. It was James Stacy,the millionaire and banker. No one but himself knew that he hadcovered half the distance of a nightlong ride from Boomville intwo hours. But before they could voice their astonishment Stacy hadthrown a letter to the obsequious landlord, and then gathering upthe reins had sped away to the railroad station half a miledistant. "Looks as if the Boss of Creation was in a hurry," said one ofthe eager gazers in the doorway. "Somebody goin' to get smashed,sure." "More like as if he was just humpin' himself to keep fromgetting smashed," said Steptoe. "The bank hasn't got over theeffect of their smart deal in the Wheat Trust. Everything they hadin their hands tumbled yesterday in Sacramento. Men like me and youain't goin' to trust their money to be 'jockeyed' with in thatstyle. Nobody but a man with a swelled head like Stacy would haveeven dared to try it on. And now, by G-d! he's got to pay forit." The harsh, exultant tone of the speaker showed that he had quiteforgotten Van Loo and Hamlin in his superior hatred of themillionaire, and both men noticed it. Van Loo edged still nearer tothe door, as Steptoe continued, "Ever since he made that big strikeon Heavy Tree five years ago, the country hasn't been big enough tohold him. But mark my words, gentlemen, the time ain't far off whenhe'll find a two-foot ditch again and a pick and grub wages roomenough and to spare for him and his kind of cattle." "You're not drinking," said Jack Hamlin cheerfully. Steptoe turned towards the bar, and then started. "Where's VanLoo?" he demanded of Jack sharply. Jack jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Gone to hurry up hisgirl, I reckon. I calculate he ain't got much time to fool awayhere." Steptoe glanced suspiciously at Jack. But at the same momentthey were all startled--even Jack himself--at the apparition ofMrs. Barker passing hurriedly along the veranda before the windowsin the direction of the still waiting buggy. "D--n it!" saidSteptoe in a fierce whisper to the man next him. "Tell her notthere--at the back door!" But before the messenger reachedthe door there was a sudden rattle of wheels, and with one accordall except Hamlin rushed to the veranda, only to see Mrs. Barkerdriving rapidly away alone. Steptoe turned back into the room, butJack also had disappeared. For in the confusion created at the sight of Mrs. Barker, he hadslipped to the back door and found, as he suspected, only onehorse, and that with a side-saddle on. His intuitions were right.Van Loo, when he disappeared from the saloon, had instantly fled,taking the other horse and abandoning the woman to her fate. Jackas instantly leaped upon the remaining saddle and dashed after him.Presently he caught a glimpse of the fugitive in the distance,heard the halfangry, half-ironical shouts of the crowd at the backdoor, and as he reached the hilltop saw, with a mingling ofsatisfaction and perplexity, Mrs. Barker on the other road, stilldriving frantically in the direction of the railroad station. Atwhich Mr. Hamlin halted, threw away his encumbering saddle, and,good rider that he was, remounted the horse, barebacked but for hisblanket-pad, and thrusting his knees in the loose girths, againdashed forwards,--with such good results that, as Van Loo gallopedup to the stagecoach office, at the next station, and was about toenter the waiting coach for Marysville, the soft hand of Mr. Hamlinwas laid on his shoulder. "I told you," said Jack blandly, "that I had plenty of time. Iwould have been here before and even overtaken you, only youhad the better horse and the only saddle." Van Loo recoiled. But he was now desperate and reckless.Beckoning Jack out of earshot of the other passengers, he said withtightened lips, "Why do you follow me? What is your purpose incoming here?" "I thought," said Hamlin dryly, "that I was to have the pleasureof getting satisfaction from you for the insult you gave me." "Well, and if I apologize for it, what then?" he saidquickly. Hamlin looked at him quietly. "Well, I think I also saidsomething about the lady being the wife of a friend of mine." "And I have left her behind. Her husband can take herback without disgrace, for no one knows of her flight but you andme. Do you think your shooting me will save her? It will spread thescandal far and wide. For I warn you, that as I have apologized forwhat you choose to call my personal insult, unless you murder me incold blood without witness, I shall let them know the reasonof your quarrel. And I can tell you more: if you only succeed instopping me here, and make me lose my chance of gettingaway, the scandal to your friend will be greater still." Mr. Hamlin looked at Van Loo curiously. There was a certainamount of conviction in what he said. He had never met this kind ofcreature before. He had surpassed even Hamlin's first intuition ofhis character. He amused and interested him. But Mr. Hamlin wasalso a man of the world, and knew that Van Loo's reasoning might begood. He put his hands in his pockets, and said gravely, "Whatis your little game?" Van Loo had been seized with another inspiration of desperation.Steptoe had been partly responsible for this situation. Van Looknew that Jack and Steptoe were not friends. He had certain secretsof Steptoe's that might be of importance to Jack. Why should he nottry to make friends with this powerful free-lance andhalf-outlaw? "It's a game," he said significantly, "that might be of interestto your friends to hear." Hamlin took his hands out of his pockets, turned on his heel,and said, "Come with me." "But I must go by that coach now," said Van Loo desperately,"or-- I've told you what would happen." "Come with me," said Jack coolly. "If I'm satisfied with whatyou tell me, I'll put you down at the next station an hour beforethat coach gets there." "You swear it?" said Van Loo hesitatingly. "I've said it," returned Jack. "Come!" and Van Loofollowed Mr. Hamlin into the station hotel. Chapter VI. The abrupt disappearance of Jack Hamlin and the strange lady andgentleman visitor was scarcely noticed by the other guests of theDivide House, and beyond the circle of Steptoe and his friends, whowere a distinct party and strangers to the town, there was noexcitement. Indeed, the hotel proprietor might have confounded themtogether, and, perhaps, Van Loo was not far wrong in his beliefthat their identity had not been suspected. Nor were Steptoe'sfollowers very much concerned in an episode in which they had takenpart only at the suggestion of their leader, and which hadterminated so tamely. That they would have liked a "row," in whichJack Hamlin would have been incidentally forced to disgorge hiswinnings, there was no doubt, but that their interference was askedsolely to gratify some personal spite of Steptoe's against Van Loowas equally plain to them. There was some grumbling and outspokencriticism of his methods. This was later made more obvious by the arrival of another guestfor whom Steptoe and his party were evidently waiting. He was ashort, stout man, whose heavy red beard was trimmed a little morecarefully than when he was first known to Steptoe as Alky Hall, thedrunkard of Heavy Tree Hill. His dress, too, exhibited a markedimprovement in quality and style, although still characterized inthe waist and chest by the unbuttoned freedom of portly andslovenly middle age. Civilization had restricted his potations orlimited them to certain festivals known as "sprees," and his facewas less puffy and sodden. But with the accession of sobriety hehad lost his good humor, and had the irritability and intoleranceof virtuous restraint. "Ye needn't ladle out any of your forty-rod whiskey to me," hesaid querulously to Steptoe, as he filed out with the rest of theparty through the bar-room into the adjacent apartment. "I want tokeep my head level till our business is over, and I reckon itwouldn't hurt you and your gang to do the same. They're less likelyto blab; and there are few doors that whiskey won't unlock," headded, as Steptoe turned the key in the door after the party hadentered. The room had evidently been used for meetings of directors orpolitical caucuses, and was roughly furnished with notched andwhittled armchairs and a single long deal table, on which were inkand pens. The men sat down around it with a half-embarrassed,half-contemptuous attitude of formality, their bent brows andisolated looks showing little community of sentiment and scarcelyan attempt to veil that individual selfishness that was prominent.Still less was there any essay of companionship or sympathy in themanner of Steptoe as he suddenly rapped on the table with hisknuckles. "Gentlemen," he said, with a certain deliberation of utterance,as if he enjoyed his own coarse directness, "I reckon you all havea sort of general idea what you were picked up for, or you wouldn'tbe here. But you may or may not know that for the present you arehonest, hard-working miners,--the backbone of the State ofCaliforny,--and that you have formed yourselves into a companycalled the 'Blue Jay,' and you've settled yourselves on the Barbelow Heavy Tree Hill, on a deserted claim of the MarshallBrothers, not half a mile from where the big strike was made fiveyears ago. That's what you are, gentlemen; that's whatyou'll continue to be until the job's finished; and," headded, with a sudden dominance that they all felt, "the man whoforgets it will have to reckon with me. Now," he continued,resuming his former ironical manner, "now, what are the cold factsof the case? The Marshalls worked this claim ever since '49, andnever got anything out of it; then they dropped off or died out,leaving only one brother, Tom Marshall, to work what was left ofit. Well, a few days ago he found indications of a big leadin the rock, and instead of rushin' out and yellin' like an honestman, and callin' in the boys to drink, he sneaks off to 'Frisco,and goes to the bank to get 'em to take a hand in it. Well, youknow, when Jim Stacy takes a hand in anything, it's bothhands, and the bank wouldn't see it until he promised toguarantee possession of the whole abandoned claim,--'dips, spurs,and angles,'--and let them work the whole thing, which the d----dfool did, and the bank agreed to send an expert down thereto-morrow to report. But while he was away some one on our side,who was an expert also, got wind of it, and made an examination allby himself, and found it was a vein sure enough and a big thing,and some one else on our side found out, too, all that Marshall hadpromised the bank and what the bank had promised him. Now,gentlemen, when the bank sends down that expert tomorrow I expectthat he will find you in possession of every part of thedeserted claim except the spot where Tom is still working." "And what good is that to us?" asked one of the mencontemptuously. "Good?" repeated Steptoe harshly. "Well, if you're not as d----da fool as Marshall, you'll see that if he has struck a lead or veinit's bound to run across our claims, and what's to keep usfrom sinking for it as long as Marshall hasn't worked the otherclaims for years nor pre-empted them for this lead?" "What'll keep him from pre-empting now?" "Our possession." "But if he can prove that the brothers left their claims to himto keep, he'll just send the sheriff and his posse down upon us,"persisted the first speaker. "It will take him three months to do that by law, and thesheriff and his posse can't do it before as long as we're inpeaceable possession of it. And by the time that expert andMarshall return they'll find us in peaceful possession, unlesswe're such blasted fools as to stay talking about it here!" "But what's to prevent Marshall from getting a gang of his ownto drive us off?" "Now your talkin' and not yelpin'," said Steptoe, with slowinsolence. "D----d if I didn't begin to think you kalkilated I wasgoin' to employ you as lawyers! Nothing is to prevent him fromgettin' up his gang, and we hope he'll do it, for you see itputs us both on the same level before the law, for we're bothbreakin' it. And we kalkilate that we're as good as anyroughs they can pick up at Heavy Tree." "I reckon!" "Ye can count us in!" said half a dozen voiceseagerly. "But what's the job goin' to pay us?" persisted a Sydney man."An' arter we've beat off this other gang, are we going to scrubalong on grub wages until we're yanked out by process-sarvers threemonths later? If that's the ticket I'm not in it. I aren't no b--yquartz miner." "We ain't going to do no more mining there than thebank," said Steptoe fiercely. "And the bank ain't going to wait nothree months for the end of the lawsuit. They'll float the stock ofthat mine for a couple of millions, and get out of it with amillion before a month. And they'll have to buy us off to do that.What they'll pay will depend upon the lead; but we don't move offthose claims for less than five thousand dollars, which will be twohundred and fifty dollars to each man. But," said Steptoe in alower but perfectly distinct voice, "if there should be a row,--andthey begin it,-and in the scuffle Tom Marshall, their onlywitness, should happen to get in the way of a revolver or have hishead caved in, there might be some difficulty in their holdin'any of the mine against honest, hardworking miners inpossession. You hear me?" There was a breathless silence for the moment, and a slightmovement of the men in their chairs, but never in fear or protest.Every one had heard the speaker distinctly, and every mandistinctly understood him. Some of them were criminals, one or twohad already the stain of blood on their hands; but even the mosttimid, who at other times might have shrunk from suggestedassassination, saw in the speaker's words only the fair removal ofa natural enemy. "All right, boys. I'm ready to wade in at once. Why ain't we onthe road now? We might have been but for foolin' our time away onthat man Van Loo." "Van Loo!" repeated Hall eagerly,--"Van Loo! Was he here?" "Yes," said Steptoe shortly, administering a kick under thetable to Hall, as he had no wish to revive the previousirritability of his comrades. "He's gone, but," turning to theothers, "you'd have had to wait for Mr. Hall's arrival, anyhow. Andnow you've got your order you can start. Go in two parties bydifferent roads, and meet on the other side of the hotel atHymettus. I'll be there before you. Pick up some shovels and drillsas you go; remember you're honest miners, but don't forget yourshootin'-irons for all that. Now scatter." It was well that they did, vacating the room more cheerfully andsympathetically than they had entered it, or Hall's manifestdisturbance over Van Loo's visit would have been noticed. When thelast man had disappeared Hall turned quickly to Steptoe. "Well,what did he say? Where has he gone?" "Don't know," said Steptoe, with uneasy curtness. "He wasrunning away with a woman--well, Mrs. Barker, if you want to know,"he added, with rising anger, "the wife of one of those cursedpartners. Jack Hamlin was here, and was jockeying to stop him, andinterfered. But what the devil has that job to do with our job?" Hewas losing his temper; everything seemed to turn upon this infernalVan Loo! "He wasn't running away with Mrs. Barker," gasped Hall,--"it waswith her money! and the fear of being connected with theWheat Trust swindle which he organized, and with our money which Ilent him for the same purpose. And he knows all about that job, forI wanted to get him to go into it with us. Your name and mine ain'tany too sweet-smelling for the bank, and we ought to have amiddleman who knows business to arrange with them. The bank daren'tobject to him, for they've employed him in even shadiertransactions than this when they didn't wish to appear. Iknew he was in difficulties along with Mrs. Barker's speculations,but I never thought him up to this. And," he added, with suddendesperation, "you trusted him, too." In an instant Steptoe caught the frightened man by the shouldersand was bearing him down on the table. "Are you a traitor, a liar,or a besotted fool?" he said hoarsely. "Speak. When andwhere did I trust him?" "You said in your note--I was--to--help him," gasped Hall. "My note," repeated Steptoe, releasing Hall with astonishedeyes. "Yes," said Hall, tremblingly searching in his vest pocket. "Ibrought it with me. It isn't much of a note, but there's yoursignature plain enough." He handed Steptoe a torn piece of paper folded in athree-cornered shape. Steptoe opened it. He instantly recognizedthe paper on which he had written his name and sent up to his wifeat the Boomville Hotel. But, added to it, in apparently the samehand, in smaller characters, were the words, "Help Van Loo all youcan." The blood rushed into his face. But he quickly collectedhimself, and said hurriedly, "All right, I had forgotten it. Letthe d----d sneak go. We've got what's a thousand times better inthis claim at Marshall's, and it's well that he isn't in it toscoop the lion's share. Only we must not waste time getting therenow. You go there first, and at once, and set those rascals towork. I'll follow you before Marshall comes up. Get; I'll settle uphere." His face darkened once more as Hall hurried away, leaving himalone. He drew out the piece of paper from his pocket and stared atit again. Yes; it was the one he had sent to his wife. How did VanLoo get hold of it? Was he at the hotel that night? Had he pickedit up in the hall or passage when the servant dropped it? When Hallhanded him the paper and he first recognized it a fiendish thought,followed by a spasm of more fiendish rage, had sent the blood tohis face. But his crude common sense quickly dismissed thatsuggestion of his wife's complicity with Van Loo. But had she seenhim passing through the hotel that night, and had sought to drawfrom him some knowledge of his early intercourse with the child,and confessed everything, and even produced the paper with hissignature as a proof of identity? Women had been known to do suchdesperate things. Perhaps she disbelieved her son's aversion toher, and was trying to sound Van Loo. As for the forged words byVan Loo, and the use he had put them to, he cared little. Hebelieved the man was capable of forgery; indeed, he suddenlyremembered that in the old days his son had spoken innocently, butadmiringly, of Van Loo's wonderful chirographical powers and hisfaculty of imitating the writings of others, and how he had evenoffered to teach him. A new and exasperating thought came into hisfeverish consciousness. What if Van Loo, in teaching the boy, hadeven made use of him as an innocent accomplice to cover up his owntricks! The suggestion was no question of moral ethics to Steptoe,nor of his son's possible contamination, although since the nightof the big strike he had held different views; it was simply afierce, selfish jealousy that another might have profited bythe lad's helplessness and inexperience. He had been tormented bythis jealousy before in his son's liking for Van Loo. He had atfirst encouraged his admiration and imitative regard for thissmooth swindler's graces and accomplishments, which, though hescorned them himself, he was, after the common parentalinfatuation, willing that the boy should profit by. Incapable,through his own consciousness, of distinguishing between Van Loo'ssuperficial polish and the true breeding of a gentleman, he hadonly looked upon it as an equipment for his son which might beserviceable to himself. He had told his wife the truth when heinformed her of Van Loo's fears of being reminded of their formerintimacy; but he had not told her how its discontinuance after theyhad left Heavy Tree Hill had affected her son, and how he stillcherished his old admiration for that specious rascal. Nor had hetold her how this had stung him, through his own selfish greed ofthe boy's affection. Yet now that it was possible that she had metVan Loo that evening, she might have become aware of Van Loo'spower over her child. How she would exult, for all her pretendedhatred of Van Loo! How, perhaps, they had plotted together! How VanLoo might have become aware of the place where his son was kept,and have been bribed by the mother to tell her! He stopped in awhirl of giddy fancies. His strong common sense in all other thingshad been hitherto proof against such idle dreams or suggestions;but the very strength of his parental love and jealousy hadawakened in him at last the terrors of imagination. His first impulse had been to seek his wife, regardless ofdiscovery or consequences, at Hymettus, where she had said she wasgoing. It was on his way to the rendezvous at Marshall's claim. Butthis he as instantly set aside, it was his son he must find;she might not confess, or might deceive him--the boy wouldnot; and if his fears were correct, she could be arraignedafterwards. It was possible for him to reach the little Missionchurch and school, secluded in a remote valley by the oldFranciscan fathers, where he had placed the boy for the last fewyears unknown to his wife. It would be a long ride, but he couldstill reach Heavy Tree Hill afterwards before Marshall and theexpert arrived. And he had a feeling he had never felt before onthe eve of a desperate adventure,--that he must see the boy first.He remembered how the child had often accompanied him in hisflight, and how he had gained strength, and, it seemed to him, akind of luck, from the touch of that small hand in his. Surely itwas necessary now that at least his mind should be at restregarding him on the eve of an affair of this moment.Perhaps he might never see him again. At any other time, and underthe influence of any other emotion, he would have scorned such asentimentalism--he who had never troubled himself either withpreparation for the future or consideration for the past. But atthat moment he felt both. He drew a long breath. He could catch thenext train to the Three Boulders and ride thence to San Felipe. Hehurriedly left the room, settled with the landlord, and galloped tothe station. By the irony of circumstances the only horse availablefor that purpose was Mr. Hamlin's own. By two o'clock he was at the Three Boulders, where he got a fasthorse and galloped into San Felipe by four. As he descended thelast slope through the fastnesses of pines towards the littlevalley overlooked in its remoteness and purely pastoral simplicityby the gold-seeking immigrants,--its seclusion as one of thefurthest northern Californian missions still preserved through itsinsignificance and the efforts of the remaining Brotherhood, whoused it as an infirmary and a school for the few remaining Spanishfamilies,--he remembered how he once blundered upon it with the boywhile hotly pursued by a hue and cry from one of the larger towns,and how he found sanctuary there. He remembered how, when thepursuit was over, he had placed the boy there under the padre'scharge. He had lied to his wife regarding the whereabouts of herson, but he had spoken truly regarding his free expenditure for theboy's maintenance, and the good fathers had accepted, equally forthe child's sake as for the Church's sake, the generous"restitution" which this coarse, powerful, ruffianly looking fatherwas apparently seeking to make. He was quite aware of it at thetime, and had equally accepted it with grim cynicism; but it nowcame back to him with a new and smarting significance. Mightthey, too, not succeed in weaning the boy's affection fromhim, or if the mother had interfered, would they not side with herin claiming an equal right? He had sometimes laughed to himselfover the security of this hiding-place, so unknown and so unlikelyto be discovered by her, yet within easy reach of her friends andhis enemies; he now ground his teeth over the mistake which hisdoting desire to keep his son accessible to him had caused him tomake. He put spurs to his horse, dashed down the little, narrow,ill-paved street, through the deserted plaza, and pulled up in acloud of dust before the only remaining tower, with its crackedbelfry, of the half-ruined Mission church. A new dormitory andschool- building had been extended from its walls, but in asubdued, harmonious, modest way, quite unlike the usual glaringwhite-pine glories of provincial towns. Steptoe laughed to himselfbitterly. Some of his money had gone in it. He seized the horsehair rope dangling from a bell by the walland rang it sharply. A soft-footed priest appeared,--FatherDominico. "Eddy Horncastle? Ah! yes. Eddy, dear child, isgone." "Gone!" shouted Steptoe in a voice that startled the padre."Where? When? With whom?" "Pardon, senor, but for a time--only a pasear to the nextvillage. It is his saint's day--he has halfholiday. He is a goodboy. It is a little pleasure for him and for us." "Oh!" said Steptoe, softened into a rough apology. "I forgot.All right. Has he had any visitors lately--lady, for instance?" Father Dominico cast a look half of fright, half of reprovalupon his guest. "A lady here!" In his relief Steptoe burst into a coarse laugh. "Of course; yousee I forgot that, too. I was thinking of one of his woman folks,you know--relatives--aunts. Was there any other visitor?" "Only one. Ah! we know the senor's rules regarding his son." "One?" repeated Steptoe. "Who was it?" "Oh, quite an hidalgo--an old friend of the child's--mostpolite, most accomplished, fluent in Spanish, perfect indeportment. The Senor Horncastle surely could find nothing toobject to. Father Pedro was charmed with him. A man of affairs, andyet a good Catholic, too. It was a Senor Van Loo--Don Paul the boycalled him, and they talked of the boy's studies in the old days asif-- indeed, but for the stranger being a caballero and man of theworld--as if he had been his teacher." It was a proof of the intensity of the father's feelings thatthey had passed beyond the power of his usual coarse, brutalexpression, and he only stared at the priest with a dull red facein which the blood seemed to have stagnated. Presently he saidthickly, "When did he come?" "A few days ago." "Which way did Eddy go?" "To Brown's Mills, scarcely a league away. He will be here--evennow--on the instant. But the senor will come into the refectory andtake some of the old Mission wine from the Catalan grape, plantedone hundred and fifty years ago, until the dear child returns. Hewill be so happy." "No! I'm in a hurry. I will go on and meet him." He took off hishat, mopped his crisp, wet hair with his handkerchief, and in athick, slow, impeded voice, more suggestive than the outburst herestrained, said, "And as long as my son remains here that man, VanLoo, must not pass this gate, speak to him, or even see him. Youhear me? See to it, you and all the others. See to it, I say, or"--He stopped abruptly, clapped his hat on the swollen veins of hisforehead, turned quickly, passed out without another word throughthe archway into the road, and before the good priest could crosshimself or recover from his astonishment the thud of his horse'shoofs came from the dusty road. It was ten minutes before his face resumed its usual color. Butin that ten minutes, as if some of the struggle of his rider hadpassed into him, his horse was sweating with exhaustion and fear.For in that ten minutes, in this new imagination with which he wascursed, he had killed both Van Loo and his son, and burned therefectory over the heads of the treacherous priests. Then, quitehimself again, a voice came to him from the rocky trail above theroad with the hail of "Father!" He started quickly as a lad offifteen or sixteen came bounding down the hillside, and ran towardshim. "You passed me and I called to you, but you did not seem tohear," said the boy breathlessly. "Then I ran after you. Have youbeen to the Mission?" Steptoe looked at him quite as breathlessly, but from a deeperemotion. He was, even at first sight, a handsome lad, glowing withyouth and the excitement of his run, and, as the father looked athim, he could see the likeness to his mother in his clear-cutfeatures, and even a resemblance to himself in his square, compactchest and shoulders and crisp, black curls. A thrill of purelyanimal paternity passed over him, the fierce joy of his flesh overhis own flesh! His own son, by God! They could not take thatfrom him; they might plot, swindle, fawn, cheat, lie, and stealaway his affections, but there he was, plain to all eyes, his ownson, his very son! "Come here," he said in a singular, half-weary andhalf-protesting voice, which the boy instantly recognized as hisfather's accents of affection. The boy hesitated as he stood on the edge of the road andpointed with mingled mischief and fastidiousness to the depths ofimpalpable red dust that lay between him and the horseman. Steptoesaw that he was very smartly attired in holiday guise, with whiteduck trousers and patent leather shoes, and, after the Spanishfashion, wore black kid gloves. He certainly was a bit of a dandy,as he had said. The father's whole face changed as he wheeled andcame before the lad, who lifted up his arms expectantly. They hadoften ridden together on the same horse. "No rides to-day in that toggery, Eddy," he said in the samevoice. "But I'll get down and we'll go and sit somewhere under atree and have some talk. I've got a bit of a job that's hurryingme, and I can't waste time." "Not one of your old jobs, father? I thought you had quite giventhat up?" The boy spoke more carelessly than reproachfully, or evenwonderingly; yet, as he dismounted and tethered his horse, Steptoeanswered evasively, "It's a big thing, sonny; maybe we'll make oureternal fortune, and then we'll light out from this hole and have agay time elsewhere. Come along." He took the boy's gloved right hand in his own powerful grasp,and together they clambered up the steep hillside to a rocky ledgeon which a fallen pine from above had crashed, snapped itself intwain, and then left its withered crown to hang half down theslope, while the other half rested on the ledge. On this they sat,looking down upon the road and the tethered horse. A gentle breezemoved the treetops above their heads, and the westering sun playedhide-and-seek with the shifting shadows. The boy's face was quickand alert with all that moved round him, but without thought thefather's face was heavy, except for the eyes that were fixed uponhis son. "Van Loo came to the Mission," he said suddenly. The boy's eyes glittered quickly, like a steel that pierced thefather's heart. "Oh," he said simply, "then it was the padre toldyou?" "How did he know you were here?" asked Steptoe. "I don't know," said the boy quietly. "I think he saidsomething, but I've forgotten it. But it was mighty good of him tocome, for I thought, you know, that he did not care to see me afterHeavy Tree, and that he'd gone back on us." "What did he tell you?" continued Steptoe. "Did he talk of me orof your mother?" "No," said the boy, but without any show of interest orsympathy; "we talked mostly about old times." "Tell me about those old times, Eddy. You never told meanything about them." The boy, momentarily arrested more by something in the tone ofhis father's voice--a weakness he had never noticed before--than byany suggestion of his words, said with a laugh, "Oh, only aboutwhat we used to do when I was very little and used to call myselfhis 'little brother,'--don't you remember, long before the bigstrike on Heavy Tree? They were gay times we had then." "And how he used to teach you to imitate other people'shandwriting?" said Steptoe. "What made you think of that, pop?" said the boy, with a slightwonder in his eyes. "Why, that's the very thing we did talkabout." "But you didn't do it again; you ain't done it since," saidSteptoe quickly. "Lord! no," said the boy contemptuously. "There ain't no chancenow, and there wouldn't be any fun in it. It isn't like the oldtimes when him and me were all alone, and we used to write lettersas coming from other people to all the boys round Heavy Tree andthe Bar, and sometimes as far as Boomville, to get them to dothings, and they'd think the letters were real, and they'd do 'em.And there'd be the biggest kind of a row, and nobody ever knew whodid it." Steptoe stared at this flesh of his own flesh half in relief,half in frightened admiration. Sitting astride the log, his elbowson his knees and his gloved hands supporting his round cheeks, theboy's handsome face became illuminated with an impish devilry whichthe father had never seen before. With dancing eyes he went on. "Itwas one of those very games we played so long ago that he wanted tosee me about and wanted me to keep mum about, for some of the folksthat he played it on were around here now. It was a game we got offon one of the big strike partners long before the strike. I'll tellyou, dad, for you know what happened afterwards, and you'llbe glad. Well, that partner--Demorest--was a kind of silly, youremember--a sort of Miss Nancyish fellow--always gloomy andlovesick after his girl in the States. Well, we'd written lots ofletters to girls from their chaps before, and got lots of fun outof it; but we had even a better show for a game here, for ithappened that Van Loo knew all about the girl--things that even theman's own partners didn't, for Van Loo's mother was a sort of afriend of the girl's family, and traveled about with her, and knewthat the girl was spoony over this Demorest, and that theycorresponded. So, knowing that Van Loo was employed at Heavy Tree,she wrote to him to find out all about Demorest and how to stoptheir foolish nonsense, for the girl's parents didn't want her tomarry a broken-down miner like him. So we thought we'd do it ourown way, and write a letter to her as if it was from him, don't yousee? I wanted to make him call her awful names, and say that hehated her, that he was a murderer and a horse-thief, and that hehad killed a policeman, and that he was thinking of becoming aDigger Injin, and having a Digger squaw for a wife, which he likedbetter than her. Lord! dad, you ought to have seen what stuff Imade up." The boy burst into a shrill, half-feminine laugh, andSteptoe, catching the infection, laughed loudly in his own coarse,brutal fashion. For some moments they sat there looking in each other's faces,shaking with sympathetic emotion, the father forgetting the purposeof his coming there, his rage over Van Loo's visit, and even therendezvous to which his horse in the road below was waiting tobring him; the son forgetting their retreat from Heavy Tree Hilland his shameful vagabond wanderings with that father in the yearsthat followed. The sinking sun stared blankly in their faces; theprotecting pines above them moved by a stronger gust shook a fewcones upon them; an enormous crow mockingly repeated the father'scoarse laugh, and a squirrel scampered away from the strangelyassorted pair as Steptoe, wiping his eyes and forehead with hispocket-handkerchief, said:-"And did you send it?" "Oh! Van Loo thought it too strong. Said that those sort oflove- sick fools made more fuss over little things than they didover big things, and he sort of toned it down, and fixed it uphimself. But it told. For there were never any more letters in thepost-office in her handwriting, and there wasn't any posted to herin his." They both laughed again, and then Steptoe rose. "I must begetting along," he said, looking curiously at the boy. "I've got tocatch a train at Three Boulders Station." "Three Boulders!" repeated the boy. "I'm going there, too, onFriday, to meet Father Cipriano." "I reckon my work will be all done by Friday," said Steptoemusingly. Standing thus, holding his boy's hand, he was thinkingthat the real fight at Marshall's would not take place at once, forit might take a day or two for Marshall to gather forces. But heonly pressed his son's hand gently. "I wish you would sometimes take me with you as you used to,"said the boy curiously. "I'm bigger now, and wouldn't be in yourway. Steptoe looked at the boy with a choking sense of satisfactionand pride. But he said, "No;" and then suddenly with simulatedhumor, "Don't you be taken in by any letters from me, suchas you and Van Loo used to write. You hear?" The boy laughed. "And," continued Steptoe, "if anybody says I sent for you, don'tyou believe them." "No," said the boy, smiling. "And don't you even believe I'm dead till you see me so. Youunderstand. By the way, Father Pedro has some money of mine keptfor you. Now hurry back to school and say you met me, but that Iwas in a great hurry. I reckon I may have been rather rough to thepriests." They had reached the lower road again, and Steptoe silentlyunhitched his horse. "Good-by," he said, as he laid his hand on theboy's arm. "Good-by, dad." He mounted his horse slowly. "Well," he said smilingly, lookingdown the road, "you ain't got anything more to say to me, haveyou?" "No, dad." "Nothin' you want?" "Nothin', dad." "All right. Good-by." He put spurs to his horse and cantered down the road withoutlooking back. The boy watched him with idle curiosity until hedisappeared from sight, and then went on his way, whistling andstriking off the heads of the wayside weeds with hiswalking-stick. Chapter VII. The sun arose so brightly over Hymettus on the morning after themeeting of the three partners that it was small wonder thatBarker's impressionable nature quickly responded to it, and,without awakening the still sleeping child, he dressed hurriedly,and was the first to greet it in the keen air of the slope behindthe hotel. To his pantheistic spirit it had always seemed asnatural for him to early welcome his returning brothers of thewoods and hills as to say good-morning to his fellow mortals. And,in the joy of seeing Black Spur rising again to his level in thedistance before him, he doffed his hat to it with a return of hisold boyish habit, laid his arm caressingly around the great girthof the nearest pine, clapped his hands to the scampering squirrelsin his path, and whistled to the dipping jays. In this way he quiteforgot the more serious affairs of the preceding night, or, rather,saw them only in the gilding of the morning, until, looking up, heperceived the tall figure of Demorest approaching him; and then itstruck him with his first glance at his old partner's face that hisusual suave, gentle melancholy had been succeeded by a criticalcynicism of look and a restrained bitterness of accent. Barker'sloyal heart smote him for his own selfishness; Demorest had beenhard hit by the discovery of the forgery and Stacy's concern in it,and had doubtless passed a restless night, while he (Barker) hadforgotten all about it. "I thought of knocking at your door, as Ipassed," he said, with sympathetic apology, "but I was afraid Imight disturb you. Isn't it glorious here? Quite like the old hill.Look at that lizard; he hasn't moved since he first saw me. Do youremember the one who used to steal our sugar, and then stiffenhimself into stone on the edge of the bowl until he looked like anornamental handle to it?" he continued, rebounding again intospirits. "Barker," said Demorest abruptly, "what sort of woman is thisMrs. Van Loo, whose rooms I occupy?" "Oh," said Barker, with optimistic innocence, "a most properwoman, old chap. White-haired, well-dressed, with a little foreignaccent and a still more foreign courtesy. Why, you don't supposewe'd"-"But what is she like?" said Demorest impatiently. "Well," said Barker thoughtfully, "she's the kind of woman whomight be Van Loo's mother, I suppose." "You mean the mother of a forger and a swindler?" asked Demorestsharply. "There are no mothers of swindlers and forgers," said Barkergravely, "in the way you mean. It's only those poor devils," hesaid, pointing, nevertheless, with a certain admiration to acircling sparrow-hawk above him, "who have inherited instincts.What I mean is that she might be Van Loo's mother, because hedidn't select her." "Where did she come from? and how long has she been here?" askedDemorest. "She came from abroad, I believe. And she came here just afteryou left. Van Loo, after he became secretary of the Ditch Company,sent for her and her daughter to keep house for him. But you'll seeher to-day or to-morrow probably, when she returns. I'll introduceyou; she'll be rather glad to meet some one from abroad, and allthe more if he happens to be rich and distinguished, and eligiblefor her daughter." He stopped suddenly in his smile, rememberingDemorest's lifelong secret. But to his surprise his companion'sface, instead of darkening as it was wont to do at any suchallusion, brightened suddenly with a singular excitement as heanswered dryly, "Ah well, if the girl is pretty, who knows!" Indeed, his spirits seemed to have returned with strangevivacity as they walked back to the hotel, and he asked many otherquestions regarding Mrs. Van Loo and her daughter, and particularlyif the daughter had also been abroad. When they reached the verandathey found a few early risers eagerly reading the Sacramentopapers, which had just arrived, or, in little knots, discussing thenews. Indeed, they would probably have stopped Barker and hiscompanion had not Barker, anxious to relieve his friend'scuriosity, hurried with him at once to the manager's office. "Can you tell me exactly when you expect Mrs. Van Loo toreturn?" asked Barker quickly. The manager with difficulty detached himself from the newspaperwhich he, too, was anxiously perusing, and said, with a peculiarsmile, "Well no! she was to return to-day, but if you'rewanting to keep her rooms, I should say there wouldn't be anytrouble about it, as she'll hardly be coming back here now.She's rather high and mighty in style, I know, and a determinedsort of critter, but I reckon she and her daughter wouldn't caremuch to be waltzing round in public after what has happened." "I don't understand you," said Demorest impatiently."What has happened?" "Haven't you heard the news?" said the manager in surprise."It's in all the Sacramento papers. Van Loo is a defaulter--hashypothecated everything he had and skedaddled." Barker started. He was not thinking of the loss of his wife'smoney--only of her disappointment and mortification over it.Poor girl! Perhaps she was also worrying over his resentment,--asif she did not know him! He would go to her at once at Boomville.Then he remembered that she was coming with Mrs. Horncastle, andmight be already on her way here by rail or coach, and he wouldmiss her. Demorest in the meantime had seized a paper, and wasintently reading it. "There's bad news, too, for your friend, your old partner," saidthe manager half sympathetically, half interrogatively. "There hasbeen a drop out in everything the bank is carrying, and everybodyis unloading. Two firms failed in 'Frisco yesterday that werecarrying things for the bank, and have thrown everything back onit. There was an awful panic last night, and they say none of thebig speculators know where they stand. Three of our best customersin the hotel rushed off to the bay this morning, but Stacy himselfstarted before daylight, and got the through night express to stopfor him on the Divide on signal. Shall I send any telegrams thatmay come to your room?" Demorest knew that the manager suspected him of being interestedin the bank, and understood the purport of the question. Heanswered, with calm surprise, that he was expecting no telegrams,and added, "But if Mrs. Van Loo returns I beg you to at once let meknow," and taking Barker's arm he went in to breakfast. Seated bythemselves, Demorest looked at his companion. "I'm afraid, Barkerboy, that this thing is more serious to Jim than we expected lastnight, or than he cared to tell us. And you, old man, I fear arehurt a little by Van Loo's flight. He had some money of yourwife's, hadn't he?" Barker, who knew that the bulk of Demorest's fortune was inStacy's hands, was touched at this proof of his unselfish thought,and answered with equal unselfishness that he was concerned only bythe fear of Mrs. Barker's disappointment. "Why, Lord! Phil, whethershe's lost or saved her money it's nothing to me. I gave it to herto do what she liked with it, but I'm afraid she'll be worryingover what I think of it,--as if she did not know me! And I'm half amind, if it were not for missing her, to go over to Boomville,where she's stopping." "I thought you said she was in San Francisco?" said Demorestabstractedly. Barker colored. "Yes," he answered quickly. "But I've heardsince that she stopped at Boomville on the way." "Then don't let me keep you here," returned Demorest."For if Jim telegraphs to me I shall start for San Francisco atonce, and I rather think he will. I did not like to say so beforethose panicmongers outside who are stampeding everything; so runalong, Barker boy, and ease your mind about the wife. We may haveother things to think about soon." Thus adjured, Barker rose from his half-finished breakfast andslipped away. Yet he was not quite certain what to do. His wifemust have heard the news at Boomville as quickly as he had, and, ifso, would be on her way with Mrs. Horncastle; or she might bewaiting for him--knowing, too, that he had heard the news--in fearand trembling. For it was Barker's custom to endow all those hecared for with his own sensitiveness, and it was not like him toreflect that the woman who had so recklessly speculated against hisopinion would scarcely fear his reproaches in her defeat. In thefullness of his heart he telegraphed to her in case she had not yetleft Boomville: "All right. Have heard news. Understand perfectly.Don't worry. Come to me." Then he left the hotel by the stableentrance in order to evade the guests who had congregated on theveranda, and made his way to a little wooded crest which he knewcommanded a view of the two roads from Boomville. Here hedetermined to wait and intercept her before she reached the hotel.He knew that many of the guests were aware of his wife'sspeculations with Van Loo, and that he was her broker. He wished tospare her running the gauntlet of their curious stares and commentsas she drove up alone. As he was climbing the slope the coach fromSacramento dashed past him on the road below, but he knew that ithad changed horses at Boomville at four o'clock, and that his tiredwife would not have availed herself of it at that hour,particularly as she could not have yet received the fateful news.He threw himself under a large pine, and watched the stagecoachdisappear as it swept round into the courtyard of the hotel. He sat there for some moments with his eyes bent upon the twoforks of the red road that diverged below him, but which appearedto become whiter and more dazzling as he searched their distance.There was nothing to be seen except an occasional puff of dustwhich eventually revealed a horseman or a long trailing cloud outof which a solitary mule, one of a pack-train of six or eight,would momentarily emerge and be lost again. Then he suddenly heardhis name called, and, looking up, saw Mrs. Horncastle, who hadhalted a few paces from him between two columns of the long-drawnaisle of pines. In that mysterious half-light she seemed such a beautiful andgoddess-like figure that his consciousness at first was unable tograsp anything else. She was always wonderfully well dressed, butthe warmth and seclusion of this mountain morning had enabled herto wear a light gown of some delicate fabric which set off thegrace of her figure, and even pardoned the rural coquetry of asilken sash around her still slender waist. An open white parasolthrown over her shoulder made a nimbus for her charming head andthe thick coils of hair under her lace-edged hat. He had never seenher look so beautiful before. And that thought was so plainly inhis frank face and eyes as he sprang to his feet that it brought aslight rise of color to her own cheek. "I saw you climbing up here as I passed in the coach a fewminutes ago," she said, with a smile, "and as soon as I had shakenthe dust off I followed you." "Where's Kitty?" he stammered. The color faded from her face as it had come, and a shade ofsomething like reproach crept into her dark eyes. And whatever ithad been her purpose to say, or however carefully she might haveprepared herself for this interview, she was evidently taken abackby the sudden directness of the inquiry. Barker saw this asquickly, and as quickly referred it to his own rudeness. His wholesoul rushed in apology to his face as he said, "Oh, forgive me! Iwas anxious about Kitty; indeed, I had thought of coming again toBoomville, for you've heard the news, of course? Van Loo is adefaulter, and has run away with the poor child's money." Mrs. Horncastle had heard the news at the hotel. She paused amoment to collect herself, and then said slowly and tentatively,with a watchful intensity in her eyes, "Mrs. Barker went, I think,to the Divide"-But she was instantly interrupted by the eager Barker. "I see. Ithought of that at once. She went directly to the company's officesto see if she could save anything from the wreck before she saw me.It was like her, poor girl! And you--you," he went on eagerly, hiswhole face beaming with gratitude,--"you, out of your goodness,came here to tell me." He held out both hands and took hers inhis. For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was speechless and vacillating. Shehad often noticed before that it was part of the irony of thecreation of such a simple nature as Barker's that he was not onlyopen to deceit, but absolutely seemed to invite it. Instead ofmaking others franker, people were inclined to rebuke his credulityby restraint and equivocation on their own part. But the evasionthus offered to her, although only temporary, was a temptation shecould not resist. And it prolonged an interview that a ruthlessrevelation of the truth might have shortened. "She did not tell me she was going there," she replied stillevasively; "and, indeed," she added, with a burst of candor stillmore dangerous, "I only learned it from the hotel clerk after shewas gone. But I want to talk to you about her relations to VanLoo," she said, with a return of her former intensity of gaze, "andI thought we would be less subject to interruption here than at thehotel. Only I suppose everybody knows this place, and any of thoseflirting couples are likely to come here. Besides," she added, witha little half-hysterical laugh and a slight shiver, as she lookedup at the high interlacing boughs above her head, "it's as publicas the aisles of a church, and really one feels as if one were'speaking out' in meeting. Isn't there some other spot a littlemore secluded, where we could sit down," she went on, as she pokedher parasol into the usual black gunpowdery deposit of earth whichmingled with the carpet of pine-needles beneath her feet, "and notget all sticky and dirty?" Barker's eyes sparkled. "I know every foot of this hill, Mrs.Horncastle," he said, "and if you will follow me I'll take you toone of the loveliest nooks you ever dreamed of. It's an old Indianspring now forgotten, and I think known only to me and the birds.It's not more than ten minutes from here; only"--he hesitated as hecaught sight of the smart French bronze buckled shoe and silkenankle which Mrs. Horncastle's gathering up of her dainty skirtsaround her had disclosed-"it may be a little rough and dusty goingto your feet." But Mrs. Horncastle pointed out that she had alreadyirretrievably ruined her shoes and stockings in climbing up tohim,--although Barker could really distinguish no diminution oftheir freshness,- and that she might as well go on. Whereat theyboth passed down the long aisle of slope to a little hollow ofmanzanita, which again opened to a view of Black Spur, but left thehotel hidden. "What time did Kitty go?" began Barker eagerly, when they werehalf down the slope. But here Mrs. Horncastle's foot slipped upon the glassy pine-needles, and not only stopped an answer, but obliged Barker to giveall his attention to keep his companion from falling again untilthey reached the open. Then came the plunge through the manzanitathicket, then a cool wade through waist-deep ferns, and then theyemerged, holding each other's hand, breathless and panting beforethe spring. It did not belie his enthusiastic description. A triangularhollow, niched in a shelf of the mountain-side, narrowed to a pointfrom which the overflow of the spring percolated through a fringeof alder, to fall in what seemed from the valley to be a greenfurrow down the whole length of the mountain-side. Overhung bypines above, which met and mingled with the willows that everywherefringed it, it made the one cooling shade in the whole baskingexpanse of the mountain, and yet was penetrated throughout by theintoxicating spice of the heated pines. Flowering reeds and longlush grasses drew a magic circle round an open bowl-like pool inthe centre, that was always replenished to the slow murmur of anunseen rivulet that trickled from a white-quartz cavern in themountain-side like a vein opened in its flank. Shadows of timidwings crossed it, quick rustlings disturbed the reeds, but nothingmore. It was silent, but breathing; it was hidden to everything butthe sky and the illimitable distance. They threaded their way around it on the spongy carpet, coveredby delicate lace-like vines that seemed to caress rather thantrammel their moving feet, until they reached an open space beforethe pool. It was cushioned and matted with disintegrated pine bark,and here they sat down. Mrs. Horncastle furled her parasol and laidit aside; raised both hands to the back of her head and took twohat-pins out, which she placed in her smiling mouth; removed herhat, stuck the hat-pins in it, and handed it to Barker, who gentlyplaced it on the top of a tall reed, where during the rest of thatmomentous meeting it swung and drooped like a flower; removed hergloves slowly; drank still smilingly and gratefully nearly awineglassful of the water which Barker brought her in the greentwisted chalice of a lily leaf; looked the picture of happiness,and then burst into tears. Barker was astounded, dismayed, even terror-stricken. Mrs.Horncastle crying! Mrs. Horncastle, the imperious, the collected,the coldly critical, the cynical, smiling woman of the world,actually crying! Other women might cry--Kitty had cried often--butMrs. Horncastle! Yet, there she was, sobbing; actually sobbing likea schoolgirl, her beautiful shoulders rising and falling with hergrief; crying unmistakably through her long white fingers, througha lace pocket-handkerchief which she had hurriedly produced andshaken from behind her like a conjurer's trick; her beautiful eyesa thousand times more lustrous for the sparkling beads that brimmedher lashes and welled over like the pool before her. "Don't mind me," she murmured behind her handkerchief. "It'svery foolish, I know. I was nervous--worried, I suppose; I'll bebetter in a moment. Don't notice me, please." But Barker had drawn beside her and was trying, after thefashion of his sex, to take her handkerchief away in apparently thefirm belief that this action would stop her tears. "But tell mewhat it is. Do Mrs. Horncastle, please," he pleaded in his boyishfashion. "Is it anything I can do? Only say the word; only tell mesomething!" But he had succeeded in partially removing the handkerchief, andso caught a glimpse of her wet eyes, in which a faint smilestruggled out like sunshine through rain. But they clouded again,although she didn't cry, and her breath came and went with theaction of a sob, and her hands still remained against her flushedface. "I was only going to talk to you of Kitty" (sob)--"but I supposeI'm weak" (sob)--"and such a fool" (sob) "and I got to thinking ofmyself and my own sorrows when I ought to be thinking only of youand Kitty." "Never mind Kitty," said Barker impulsively. "Tell me aboutyourself--your own sorrows. I am a brute to have bothered you abouther at such a moment; and now until you have told me what ispaining you so I shall not let you speak of her." He was perfectlysincere. What were Kitty's possible and easy tears over the loss ofher money to the unknown agony that could wrench a sob from a womanlike this? "Dear Mrs. Horncastle," he went on as breathlessly,"think of me now not as Kitty's husband, but as your true friend.Yes, as your best and truest friend, and speak to meas you would speak to him." "You will be my friend?" she said suddenly and passionately,grasping his hand, "my best and truest friend? and if I tell youall,--everything, you will not cast me from you and hate me?" Barker felt the same thrill from her warm hand slowly possesshis whole being as it had the evening before, but this time he wasprepared and answered the grasp and her eyes together as he saidbreathlessly, "I will be--I am your friend." She withdrew her hand and passed it over her eyes. After amoment she caught his hand again, and, holding it tightly as if shefeared he might fly from her, bit her lip, and then slowly, withoutlooking at him, said, "I lied to you about myself and Kitty thatnight; I did not come with her. I came alone and secretly toBoomville to see--to see the man who is my husband." "Your husband!" said Barker in surprise. He had believed, withthe rest of the world, that there had been no communication betweenthem for years. Yet so intense was his interest in her that he didnot notice that this revelation was leaving now no excuse for hiswife's presence at Boomville. Mrs. Horncastle went on with dogged bitterness, "Yes, myhusband. I went to him to beg and bribe him to let me see my child.Yes, my child," she said frantically, tightening her holdupon his hand, "for I lied to you when I once told you I had none.I had a child, and, more than that, a child who at his birth I didnot dare to openly claim." She stopped breathlessly, stared at his face with her formerintensity as if she would pluck the thought that followed from hisbrain. But he only moved closer to her, passed his arm over hershoulders with a movement so natural and protecting that it had acertain dignity in it, and, looking down upon her bent head witheyes brimming with sympathy, whispered, "Poor, poor child!" Whereat Mrs. Horncastle again burst into tears. And then, withher head half drawn towards his shoulder, she told him all,--allthat had passed between her and her husband,--even all that theyhad then but hinted at. It was as if she felt she could now, forthe first time, voice all these terrible memories of the past whichhad come back to her last night when her husband had left her. Sheconcealed nothing, she veiled nothing; there were intervals whenher tears no longer flowed, and a cruel hardness and return of herold imperiousness of voice and manner took their place, as if shewas doing a rigid penance and took a bitter satisfaction in layingbare her whole soul to him. "I never had a friend," she whispered;"there were women who persecuted me with their jealous sneers;there were men who persecuted me with their selfish affections.When I first saw you, you seemed something so apart anddifferent from all other men that, although I scarcely knew you, Iwanted to tell you, even then, all that I have told you now. Iwanted you to be my friend; something told me that you could,--thatyou could separate me from my past; that you could tell me what todo; that you could make me think as you thought, see life asyou saw it, and trust always to some goodness in people asyou did. And in this faith I thought that you wouldunderstand me now, and even forgive me all." She made a slight movement as if to disengage his arm, and,possibly, to look into his eyes, which she knew instinctively werebent upon her downcast head. But he only held her the more tightlyuntil her cheek was close against his breast. "What could I do?"she murmured. "A man in sorrow and trouble may go to a woman forsympathy and support and the world will not gainsay ormisunderstand him. But a woman--weaker, more helpless, credulous,ignorant, and craving for light--must not in her agony go to a manfor succor and sympathy." "Why should she not?" burst out Barker passionately, releasingher in his attempt to gaze into her face. "What man dare refuseher?" "Not that," she said slowly, but with still averted eyes,"but because the world would say she loved him." "And what should she care for the opinion of a world that standsaside and lets her suffer? Why should she heed its wretchedbabble?" he went on in flashing indignation. "Because," she said faintly, lifting her moist eyes and moistand parted lips towards him,-"because it would betrue!" There was a silence so profound that even the spring seemed towithhold its song as their eyes and lips met. When the springrecommenced its murmur, and they could hear the droning of a beeabove them and the rustling of the reed, she was murmuring, too,with her face against his breast: "You did not think it strangethat I should follow you--that I should risk everything to tell youwhat I have told you before I told you anything else? You willnever hate me for it, George?" There was another silence still more prolonged, and when helooked again into the flushed face and glistening eyes he wassaying, "I have always loved you. I know now I loved youfrom the first, from the day when I leaned over you to take littleSta from your lap and saw your tenderness for him in your eyes. Icould have kissed you then, dearest, as I do now." "And," she said, when she had gained her smiling breath again,"you will always remember, George, that you told me thisbefore I told you anything of her." "Her? Of whom, dearest?" he asked, leaning over hertenderly. "Of Kitty--of your wife," she said impatiently, as she drew backshyly with her former intense gaze. He did not seem to grasp her meaning, but said gravely, "Let usnot talk of her now. Later we shall have much to sayof her. For," he added quietly, "you know I must tell her all." The color faded from her cheek. "Tell her all!" she repeatedvacantly; then suddenly she turned upon him eagerly, and said, "Butwhat if she is gone?" "Gone?" he repeated. "Yes; gone. What if she has run away with Van Loo? What if shehas disgraced you and her child?" "What do you mean?" he said, seizing both her hands and gazingat her fixedly. "I mean," she said, with a half-frightened eagerness, "that shehas already gone with Van Loo. George! George!" she burst outsuddenly and passionately, falling upon her knees before him, "doyou think that I would have followed you here and told you what Idid if I thought that she had now the slightest claim upon yourlove or honor? Don't you understand me? I came to tell you of herflight to Boomville with that man; how I accidentally interceptedthem there; how I tried to save her from him, and even lied to youto try to save her from your indignation; but how she deceived meas she has you, and even escaped and joined her lover while youwere with me. I came to tell you that and nothing more, George, Iswear it. But when you were kind to me and pitied me, I was mad--wild! I wanted to win you first out of your own love. I wanted youto respond to mine before you knew your wife was faithless.Yet I would have saved her if I could. Listen, George! A momentmore before you speak!" Then she hurriedly told him all; the whole story of his wife'sdishonor, from her entrance into the sitting-room with Van Loo, herlater appeal for concealment from her husband's unexpectedpresence, to the use she made of that concealment to fly with herlover. She spared no detail, and even repeated the insult Mrs.Barker had cast upon her with the triumphant reproach that herhusband would not believe her. "Perhaps," she added bitterly, "youmay not believe me now. I could even stand that from you, George,if it could make you happier; but you would still have to believeit from others. The people at the Boomville Hotel saw them leave ittogether." "I do believe you," be said slowly, but with downcast eyes, "andif I did not love you before you told me this I could love you nowfor the part you have taken; but"-- He stopped. "You love her still," she burst out, "and I might have known it.Perhaps," she went on distractedly, "you love her the more that youhave lost her. It is the way of men--and women." "If I had loved her truly," said Barker, lifting his frank eyesto hers, "I could not have touched your lips. I could noteven have wished to--as I did three years ago--as I did last night.Then I feared it was my weakness, now I know it was my love. I havethought of it ever since, even while waiting my wife's return here,knowing that I did not and never could have loved her. But for thatvery reason I must try to save her for her own sake, if I cannotsave her for mine; and if I fail, dearest, it shall not be saidthat we climbed to happiness over her back bent with the burden ofher shame. If I loved you and told you so, thinking her stillguiltless and innocent, how could I profit now by her fault?" Mrs. Horncastle saw too late her mistake. "Then you would takeher back?" she said frenziedly. "To my home--which is hers--yes. To my heart--no. She never wasthere." "And I," said Mrs. Horncastle, with a quivering lip,--"where doI go when you have settled this? Back to my past again? Back to myhusbandless, childless life?" She was turning away, but Barker caught her in his arms again."No!" he said, his whole face suddenly radiating with hope andyouthful enthusiasm. "No! Kitty will help us; we will tell her all.You do not know her, dearest, as I do--how good and kind she is, inspite of all. We will appeal to her; she will devise some means bywhich, without the scandal of a divorce, she and I may beseparated. She will take dear little Sta with her--it is onlyright, poor girl; but she will let me come and see him. She will bea sister to us, dearest. Courage! All will come right yet. Trust tome." An hysterical laugh came to Mrs. Horncastle's lips and thenstopped. For as she looked up at him in his supreme hopefulness,his divine confidence in himself and others--at his handsome facebeaming with love and happiness, and his clear gray eyes glitteringwith an almost spiritual prescience--she, woman of the world andbitter experience, and perfectly cognizant of her own and Kitty'spossibilities, was, nevertheless, completely carried away by herlover's optimism. For of all optimism that of love is the mostconvincing. Dear boy!--for he was but a boy in experience--only hislove for her could work this magic. So she gave him kiss for kiss,largely believing, largely hoping, that Mrs. Barker was in lovewith Van Loo and would not return. And in this hope aninvincible belief in the folly of her own sex soothed and sustainedher. "We must go now, dearest," said Barker, pointing to the sunalready near the meridian. Three hours had fled, they knew not how."I will bring you back to the hill again, but there we had betterseparate, you taking your way alone to the hotel as you came, and Iwill go a little way on the road to the Divide and return later.Keep your own counsel about Kitty for her sake and ours; perhaps noone else may know the truth yet." With a farewell kiss they plungedagain hand in hand through the cool bracken and again through thehot manzanita bushes, and so parted on the hilltop, as they hadnever parted before, leaving their whole world behind them. Barker walked slowly along the road under the flickering shadeof wayside sycamore, his sensitive face also alternating with histhought in lights and shadows. Presently there crept towards himout of the distance a halting, vacillating, deviating buggy,trailing a cloud of dust after it like a broken wing. As it camenearer he could see that the horse was spent and exhausted, andthat the buggy's sole occupant--a woman--was equally exhausted inher monotonous attempt to urge it forward with whip and reins thatrose and fell at intervals with feeble reiteration. Then he steppedout of the shadow and stood in the middle of the sunlit road toawait it. For he recognized his wife. The buggy came nearer. And then the most exquisite pang he hadever felt before at his wife's hands shot through him. For as sherecognized him she made a wild but impotent attempt to dash pasthim, and then as suddenly pulled up in the ditch. He went up to her. She was dirty, she was disheveled, she washaggard, she was plain. There were rings of dust round her tear-swept eyes and smudges of dust-dried perspiration over her faircheek. He thought of the beauty, freshness, and elegance of thewoman he had just left, and an infinite pity swept the soul of thisweak-minded gentleman. He ran towards her, and tenderly lifting herin her shame-stained garments from the buggy, said hurriedly, "Iknow it all, poor Kitty! You heard the news of Van Loo's flight,and you ran over to the Divide to try and save some of your money.Why didn't you wait? Why didn't you tell me?" There was no mistaking the reality of his words, the genuinepity and tenderness of his action; but the woman saw before heronly the familiar dupe of her life, and felt an infinite reliefmingled with a certain contempt for his weakness and anger at herprevious fears of him. "You might have driven over, then, yourself," she said in ahigh, querulous voice, "if you knew it so well, and have sparedme this horrid, dirty, filthy, hopeless expedition, for Ihave not saved anything--there! And I have had all this disgustingbother!" For an instant he was sorely tempted to lift his eyes to herface, but he checked himself; then he gently took her dust-coatfrom her shoulders and shook it out, wiped the dust from her faceand eyes with his own handkerchief, held her hat and blew the dustfrom it with a vivid memory of performing the same service for Mrs.Horncastle only an hour before, while she arranged her hair; andthen, lifting her again into the buggy, said quietly, as he tookhis seat beside her and grasped the reins:-"I will drive you to the hotel by way of the stables, and youcan go at once to your room and change your clothes. You are tired,you are nervous and worried, and want rest. Don't tell me anythingnow until you feel quite yourself again." He whipped up the horse, who, recognizing another hand at thereins, lunged forward in a final effort, and in a few minutes theywere at the hotel. As Mrs. Horncastle sat at luncheon in the great dining-room, alittle pale and abstracted, she saw Mrs. Barker sweep confidentlyinto the room, fresh, rosy, and in a new and ravishing toilette.With a swift glance of conscious power towards the other guests shewalked towards Mrs. Horncastle. "Ah, here you are, dear," she saidin a voice that could easily reach all ears, "and you've arrivedonly a little before me, after all. And I've had such anawful drive to the Divide! And only think! poor Georgetelegraphed to me at Boomville not to worry, and his dispatch hasonly just come back here." And with a glance of complacency she laid Barker's gentle andforgiving dispatch before the astonished Mrs. Horncastle. Chapter VIII. As the day advanced the excitement over the financial crisisincreased at Hymettus, until, in spite of its remote and peacefulisolation, it seemed to throb through all its verandas andcorridors with some pulsation from the outer world. Besides theletters and dispatches brought by hurried messengers and by coachfrom the Divide, there was a crowd of guests and servants aroundthe branch telegraph at the new Heavy Tree post-office which wasconstantly augmenting. Added to the natural anxiety of the deeplyinterested was the stimulated fever of the few who wished to be "inthe fashion." It was early rumored that a heavy operator, a guestof the hotel, who was also a director in the telegraph company, hadbought up the wires for his sole use, that the dispatches weredoctored in his interests as a "bear," and there was wild talk oflynching by the indignant mob. Passengers from Sacramento, SanFrancisco, and Marysville brought incredible news and the wildestsensations. Firm after firm had failed in the great cities. Oldestablished houses that dated back to the "spring of '49," and hadweathered the fires and inundations of their perilous Californianinfancy, collapsed before this mysterious, invisible, impalpablebreath of panic. Companies rooted in respectability and sneered atfor old-fashioned ways were discovered to have shamelesslyspeculated with trusts! An eminent deacon and pillar of the churchwas found dead in his room with a bullet in his heart and a damningconfession on the desk before him! Foreign bankers were sendingtheir gold out of the country; government would be appealed to toopen the vaults of the Mint; there would be an embargo on allbullion shipment! Nothing was too wild or preposterous to berepeated or credited. And with this fever of sordid passion the summer temperature hadincreased. For the last two weeks the thermometer had stoodabnormally high during the day-long sunshine; and the metallic dustin the roads over mineral ranges pricked the skin like red-hotneedles. In the deepest woods the aromatic sap stood in beads onfelled logs and splintered tree-shafts; even the mountain nightbreeze failed to cool these baked and heated fastnesses. There wereominous clouds of smoke by day that were pillars of fire by nightalong the distant valleys. Some of the nearer crests were etchedagainst the midnight sky by dull red creeping lines like a dyingfirework. The great hotel itself creaked and crackled and warpedthough all its painted, blistered, and veneered expanse, and wasfilled with the stifling breath of desiccation. The stucco crackedand crumbled away from the cornices; there were yawning gaps in theboarded floors beneath the Turkey carpets. Plate-glass windowsbecame hopelessly fixed in their warped and twisted sashes, andadded to the heat; there was a warm incense of pine sap in thedining-room that flavored all the cuisine. And yet the babble ofstocks and shares went on, and people pricked their ears over theirsoup to catch the gossip of the last arrival. Demorest, loathing it all in his new-found bitterness, wasnevertheless impatient in his inaction, and was eagerly awaiting atelegram from Stacy; Barker had disappeared since luncheon.Suddenly there was a commotion on the veranda as a carriage droveup with a handsome, gray-haired woman. In the buzzing of voicesaround him Demorest heard the name of Mrs. Van Loo. In furthercomments, made in more smothered accents, he heard that Van Loo hadbeen stopped at Canyon Station, but that no warrant had yet beenissued against him; that it was generally believed that the bankdared not hold him; that others openly averred that he had beenused as a scapegoat to avert suspicion from higher guilt. Andcertainly Mrs. Van Loo's calm, confident air seemed to corroboratethese assertions. He was still wondering if the strange coincidence which hadbrought both mother and son into his own life was not merely afancy, as far as she was concerned, when a waiter brought amessage from Mrs. Van Loo that she would be glad to see him for afew moments in her room. Last night he could scarcely haverestrained his eagerness to meet her and elucidate the mystery ofthe photograph; now he was conscious of an equally strong revulsionof feeling, and a dull premonition of evil. However, it was nodoubt possible that the man had told her of his previous inquiries,and she had merely acknowledged them by that message. Demorest found Mrs. Van Loo in the private sitting-room where heand his old partners had supped on the preceding night. Shereceived him with unmistakable courtesy and even a certain dignitythat might or might not have been assumed. He had no difficulty inrecognizing the son's mechanical politeness in the first, but hewas puzzled at the second. "The manager of this hotel," she began, with a foreigner'sprecision of English, "has just told me that you were at presentoccupying my rooms at his invitation, but that you wished to see meat once on my return, and I believe that I was not wrong inapprehending that you preferred to hear my wishes from my own lipsrather than from an innkeeper. I had intended to keep these roomsfor some weeks, but, unfortunately for me, though fortunately foryou, the present terrible financial crisis, which has most unjustlybrought my son into such scandalous prominence, will oblige me toreturn to San Francisco until his reputation is fully cleared ofthese foul aspersions. I shall only ask you to allow me theundisturbed possession of these rooms for a couple of hours until Ican pack my trunks and gather up a few souvenirs that I almostalways keep with me." "Pray, consider that your wishes are my own in respect to that,my dear madam," returned Demorest gravely, "and that, indeed, Iprotested against even this temporary intrusion upon yourapartments; but I confess that now that you have spoken of yoursouvenirs I have the greatest curiosity about one of them, and thateven my object in seeking this interview was to gratify it. It isin regard to a photograph which I saw on the chimney-piece in yourbedroom, which I think I recognized as that of some one whom Iformerly knew." There was a sudden look of sharp suspicion and even hardaggressiveness that quite changed the lady's face as he mentionedthe word "souvenir," but it quickly changed to a smile as she putup her fan with a gesture of arch deprecation, and said: "Ah! I see. Of course, a lady's photograph." The reply irritated Demorest. More than that, he felt a suddensense of the absolute sentimentality of his request, and theconsciousness that he was about to invite the familiar confidenceof this strange woman--whose son had forged his name--in regard toher! "It was a Venetian picture," he began, and stopped, a singulardisgust keeping him from voicing the name. But Mrs. Van Loo was less reticent. "Oh, you mean my dearestfriend--a lovely picture, and you know her? Why, yes, surely. Youare the Mr. Demorest who-- Of course, that old loveaffair.Well, you are a marvel! Five years ago, at least, and you have notforgotten! I really must write and tell her." "Write and tell her!" Then it was all a lie about her death! Hefelt not only his faith, his hope, his future leaving him, but evenhis self-control. With an effort he said.-"I think you have already satisfied my curiosity. I was toldfive years ago that she was dead. It was because of the date of thephotograph--two years later--that I ventured to intrude upon you. Iwas anxious only to know the truth." "She certainly was very much living and of the world when I sawher last, two years ago," said Mrs. Van Loo, with an easy smile. "Idare say that was a ruse of her relatives--a very stupid one-tobreak off the affair, for I think they had other plans. But, dearme! now I remember, was there not some little quarrel between youbefore? Some letter from you that was not very kind? My impressionis that there was something of the sort, and that the young ladywas indignant. But only for a time, you know. She very soon forgotit. I dare say if you wrote something very charming to her it mightnot be too late. We women are very forgiving, Mr. Demorest, andalthough she is very much sought after, as are all young Americangirls whose fathers can give them a comfortable 'dot', her parentsmight be persuaded to throw over a poor prince for a richcountryman in the end. Of course, you know, to you Republicansthere is always something fascinating in titles and blood, and ourdear friend is like other girls. Still, it is worth the risk. Andfive years of waiting and devotion really ought to tell. It's quitea romance! Shall I write to her and tell her I have seen you,looking well and prosperous? Nothing more. Do let me! I should bedelighted." "I think it hardly worth while for you to give yourself thattrouble," said Demorest quietly, looking in Mrs. Van Loo's smilingeyes, "now that I know the story of the young lady's death was aforgery. And I will not intrude further on your time. Pray giveyourself no needless hurry over your packing. I may go to SanFrancisco this afternoon, and not even require the roomsto-night." "At least, let me make you a present of the souvenir as anacknowledgment of your courtesy," said Mrs. Van Loo, passing intoher bedroom and returning with the photograph. "I feel that withyour five years of constancy it is more yours than mine." As agentleman Demorest knew he could not refuse, and taking thephotograph from her with a low bow, with another final salutationhe withdrew. Alone by himself in a corner of the veranda he was surprisedthat the interview had made so little impression on him, and had solittle altered his conviction. His discovery that the announcementof his betrothed's death was a fiction did not affect the fact thatthough living she was yet dead to him, and apparently by her ownconsent. The contrast between her life and his during those fiveyears had been covertly accented by Mrs. Van Loo, whetherintentionally or not, and he saw again as last night the fullextent of his sentimental folly. He could not even condole withhimself that he was the victim of miserable falsehoods that othershad invented. She had accepted them, and had even excusedher desertion of him by that last deceit of the letter. He drew out her photograph and again examined it, but not as alover. Had she really grown stouter and more self-complacent? Wasthe spirituality and delicacy he had worshiped in her purely hisown idiotic fancy? Had she always been like this? Yes. There wasthe girl who could weakly strive, weakly revenge herself, andweakly forget. There was the figure that he had expected to findcarved upon the tomb which he had long sought that he might weepover. He laughed aloud. It was very hot, and he was stifling with inaction. What wasBarker doing, and why had not Stacy telegraphed to him? And whatwere those people in the courtyard doing? Were they discussing newsof further disaster and ruin? Perhaps he was even now a beggar.Well, his fortune might go with his faith. But the crowd was simply looking at the roof of the hotel, andhe now saw that a black smoke was drifting across the courtyard,and was conscious of a smell of soot and burning. He stepped downfrom the veranda among the mingled guests and servants, and sawthat the smoke was only pouring from a chimney. He heard, too, thatthe chimney had been on fire, and that it was Mrs. Van Loo'sbedroom chimney, and that when the startled servants had knocked atthe locked door she had told them that she was only burning someold letters and newspapers, the refuse of her trunks. There wasnaturally some indignation that the hotel had been so foolishlyendangered, in such scorching weather, and the manager had had ascene with her which resulted in her leaving the hotel indignantlywith her half-packed boxes. But even after the smoke had died awayand the fire been extinguished in the chimney and hearth, there wasan acrid smell of smouldering pine penetrating the upper floors ofthe hotel all that afternoon. When Mrs. Van Loo drove away, the manager returned with Demorestto the rooms. The marble hearth was smoked and discolored and stilllittered with charred ashes of burnt paper. "My belief is," saidthe manager darkly, "that the old hag came here just to burn up alot of incriminating papers that her son had intrusted to herkeeping. It looks mighty suspicious. You see she got up an awfullot of side when I told her I didn't reckon to run a smeltingfurnace in a wooden hotel with the thermometer at one hundred inthe office, and I reckon it was just an excuse for getting off in ahurry." But the continued delay in Stacy's promised telegram had begunto work upon Demorest's usual equanimity, and he scarcely listenedin his anxiety for his old partner. He knew that Stacy should havearrived in San Francisco by noon. He had almost determined to takethe next train from the Divide when two horsemen dashed into thecourtyard. There was the usual stir on the veranda and rush fornews, but the two new arrivals turned out to be Barker, on a horsecovered with foam, and a dashing, elegantly dressed stranger on amustang as carefully groomed and as spotless as himself. Demorestinstantly recognized Jack Hamlin. He had not seen Hamlin since that day, five years before, whenthe latter had accompanied the three partners with their treasureto Boomville, and had handed him the mysterious packet. As the twomen dismounted hurriedly and moved towards him, he felt apremonition of something as fateful and important as then. Inobedience to a sign from Barker he led them to a more secludedangle of the veranda. He could not help noticing that his youngerpartner's face was mobile as ever, but more thoughtful and older;yet his voice rang with the old freemasonry of the camp, as hesaid, with a laugh, "The signal has been given, and it's boot andsaddle and away." "But I have had no dispatch from Stacy," said Demorest insurprise. "He was to telegraph to me from San Francisco in anyemergency." "He never got there at all," said Barker. "Jack ran slap intoVan Loo at the Divide, and sent a dispatch to Jim, which stoppedhim halfway until Jack could reach him, which he nearly broke hisneck to do; and then Jack finished up by bringing a message fromStacy to us that we should all meet together on the slope of HeavyTree, near the Bar. I met Jack just as I was riding into theDivide, and came back with him. He will tell you the rest, and youcan swear by what Jack says, for he's white all through," he added,laying his hand affectionately on Hamlin's shoulder. Hamlin winced slightly. For he had not told Barker thathis wife was with Van Loo, nor his first reason for interfering.But he related how he had finally overtaken Van Loo at CanyonStation, and how the fugitive had disclosed the conspiracy ofSteptoe and Hall against the bank and Marshall as the price of hisown release. On this news, remembering that Stacy had passed theDivide on his way to the station, he had first sent a dispatch tohim, and then met him at the first station on the road. "I reckon,gentlemen," said Hamlin, with an unusual earnestness in his voice,"that he'd not only got my telegram, but all the news thathad been flying around this morning, for he looked like a man towhom it was just a 'toss- up' whether he took his own life then andthere or was willing to have somebody else take it for him, for hesaid, 'I'll go myself,' and telegraphed to have the surveyorstopped from coming. Then he told me to tell you fellows, and askyou to come too." Jack paused, and added half mischievously, "Hesort of asked me what I would take to stand by him in therow, if there was one, and I told him I'd take--whiskey! You see,boys, it's a kind of off-night with me, and I wouldn't mind for thesake of old times to finish the game with old Steptoe that I begana matter of five years ago." "All right," said Demorest, with a kindling eye; "I suppose we'dbetter start at once. One moment," he added. "Barker boy, will youexcuse me if I speak a word to Hamlin?" As Barker nodded and walkedto the rails of the veranda, Demorest took Hamlin aside, "You andI," he said hurriedly, "are single men; Barker has a wifeand child. This is likely to be no child's play." But Jack Hamlin was no fool, and from certain leading questionswhich Barker had already put, but which he had skillfully evaded,he surmised that Barker knew something of his wife's escapade. Heanswered a little more seriously than his wont, "I don't think asregards his wife that would make much difference to him orher how stiff the work was." Demorest turned away with his last pang of bitterness. It neededonly this confirmation of all that Stacy had hinted, of what hehimself had seen in his brief interview with Mrs. Barker since hisreturn, to shake his last remaining faith. "We'll all go together,then," he said, with a laugh, "as in the old times, and perhapsit's as well that we have no woman in our confidence." An hour later the three men passed quietly out of the hotel,scarcely noticed by the other guests, who were also oblivious oftheir absence during the evening. For Mrs. Barker, quite recoveredfrom her fatiguing ride, was in high spirits and the most beautifuland spotless of summer gowns, and was considered quite a heroine bythe other ladies as she dwelt upon the terrible heat of her returnjourney. "Only I knew Mr. Barker would be worried--and the poor manactually walked a mile down the Divide road to meet me--I believe Ishould have stayed there all day." She glanced round the othergroups for Mrs. Horncastle, but that lady had retired early.Possibly she alone had noticed the absence of the two partners. The guests sat up until quite late, for the heat seemed to growstill more oppressive, and the strange smell of burning woodrevived the gossip about Mrs. Van Loo and her stupidity in settingfire to her chimney. Some averred that it would be days before thesmell could be got out of the house; others referred it to thefires in the woods, which were now dangerously near. One spoke ofthe isolated position of the hotel as affording the greatestsecurity, but was met by the assertion of a famous mountaineer thatthe forest fires were wont to leap from crest to crestmysteriously, without any apparent continuous contact. This led tomore or less light-hearted conjecture of present danger and someamusing stories of hotel fires and their ludicrous revelations.There were also some entertaining speculations as to what theywould do and what they would try to save in such an emergency. "For myself," said Mrs. Barker audaciously, "I should certainlylet Mr. Barker look after Sta and confine myself entirely togetting away with my diamonds. I know the wretch would never thinkof them." It was still later when, exhausted by the heat and some reactionfrom the excitement of the day, they at last deserted the verandafor their rooms, and for a while the shadowy bulk of the wholebuilding was picked out with regularly spaced lights from its openwindows, until now these finally faded and went out one by one. Anhour later the whole building had sunk to rest. It was said that itwas only four in the morning when a yawning porter, having put outthe light in a dark, upper corridor, was amazed by a dull glow fromthe top of the wall, and awoke to the fact that a red fire, as yetsmokeless and flameless, was creeping along the cornice. He ran tothe office and gave the alarm; but on returning with assistance wasstopped in the corridor by an impenetrable wall of smoke veinedwith murky flashes. The alarm was given in all the lower floors,and the occupants rushed from their beds half dressed to thecourtyard, only to see, as they afterwards averred, the flamesburst like cannon discharges from the upper windows and unite abovethe crackling roof. So sudden and complete was the catastrophe,although slowly prepared by a leak in the overheated chimneybetween the floors, that even the excitement of fear and exertionwas spared the survivors. There was bewilderment and stupor, butneither uproar nor confusion. People found themselves wandering inthe woods, half awake and half dressed, having descended from thebalconies and leaped from the windows,--they knew not how. Otherson the upper floor neither awoke nor moved from their beds, butwere suffocated without a cry. From the first an instinctive ideaof the hopelessness of combating the conflagration possessed themall; to a blind, automatic feeling to flee the building was addedthe slow mechanism of the somnambulist; delicate women walkedspeechlessly, but securely, along ledges and roofs from which theywould have fallen by the mere light of reason and of day. There wasno crowding or impeding haste in their dumb exodus. It was onlywhen Mrs. Barker awoke disheveled in the courtyard, and with anhysterical outcry rushed back into the hotel, that there was anysign of panic. Mrs. Horncastle, who was standing near, fully dressed as fromsome night-long vigil, quickly followed her. The half-frantic womanwas making directly for her own apartments, whose windows those inthe courtyard could see were already belching smoke. Suddenly Mrs.Horncastle stopped with a bitter cry and clasped her forehead. Ithad just flashed upon her that Mrs. Barker had told her only a fewhours before that Sta had been removed with the nurse to theupper floor! It was not the forgotten child that Mrs. Barkerwas returning for, but her diamonds! Mrs. Horncastle called her;she did not reply. The smoke was already pouring down thestaircase. Mrs. Horncastle hesitated for a moment only, and then,drawing a long breath, dashed up the stairs. On the first landingshe stumbled over something--the prostrate figure of the nurse. Butthis saved her, for she found that near the floor she could breathemore freely. Before her appeared to be an open door. She creptalong towards it on her hands and knees. The frightened cry of achild, awakened from its sleep in the dark, gave her nerve to rise,enter the room, and dash open the window. By the flashing light shecould see a little figure rising from a bed. It was Sta. There wasnot a moment to be lost, for the open window was beginning to drawthe smoke from the passage. Luckily, the boy, by some childishinstinct, threw his arms round her neck and left her hands free.Whispering him to hold tight, she clambered out of the window. Anarrow ledge of cornice scarcely wide enough for her feet ran alongthe house to a distant balcony. With her back to the house shezigzagged her feet along the cornice to get away from the smoke,which now poured directly from the window. Then she grew dizzy; theweight of the child on her bosom seemed to be toppling her forwardtowards the abyss below. She closed her eyes, frantically graspingthe child with crossed arms on her breast as she stood on theledge, until, as seen from below through the twisting smoke, theymight have seemed a figure of the Madonna and Child niched in thewall. Then a voice from above called to her, "Courage!" and shefelt the flap of a twisted sheet lowered from an upper windowagainst her face. She grasped it eagerly; it held firmly. Then sheheard a cry from below, saw them carrying a ladder, and at last waslifted with her burden from the ledge by powerful hands. Then onlydid she raise her eyes to the upper window whence had come herhelp. Smoke and flame were pouring from it. The unknown hero whohad sacrificed his only chance of escape to her remained foreverunknown. ...... Only four miles away that night a group of men were waiting forthe dawn in the shadow of a pine near Heavy Tree Bar. As the skyglowed redly over the crest between them and Hymettus, Hamlinsaid:-"Another one of those forest fires. It's this side of BlackSpur, and a big one, I reckon." "Do you know," said Barker thoughtfully, "I was thinking of thetime the old cabin burnt up on Heavy Tree. It looks to be about inthe same place." "Hush!" said Stacy sharply. Chapter IX. An abandoned tunnel--an irregular orifice in the mountain flankwhich looked like a dried-up sewer that had disgorged through itsopening the refuse of the mountain in red slime, gravel, and apeculiar clay known as "cement," in a foul streak down its side; anarrow ledge on either side, broken up by heaps of quartz,tailings, and rock, and half hidden in scrub, oak, and myrtle; adecaying cabin of logs, bark, and cobblestones--these made up theexterior of the Marshall claim. To this defacement of the mountain,the rude clearing of thicket and underbrush by fire or blasting,the lopping of tree-boughs and the decapitation of saplings, mightbe added the debris and ruins of half-civilized occupancy. Theground before the cabin was covered with broken boxes, tin cans,the staves and broken hoops of casks, and the cast-off rags ofblankets and clothing. The whole claim in its unsavory,unpicturesque details, and its vulgar story of sordid, reckless,and selfish occupancy and abandonment, was a foul blot on thelandscape, which the first rosy dawn only made the more offending.Surely the last spot in the world that men should quarrel and fightfor! So thought George Barker, as with his companions they moved insingle file slowly towards it. The little party consisted only ofhimself, Demorest, and Stacy; Marshall and Hamlin--according to aprearranged plan--were still in ambush to join them at the firstappearance of Steptoe and his gang. The claim was yet unoccupied;they had secured their first success. Steptoe's followers, unawarethat his design had been discovered, and confident that they couldeasily reach the claim before Marshall and the surveyor, hadlingered. Some of them had held a drunken carouse at theirrendezvous at Heavy Tree. Others were still engaged in procuringshovels and picks and pans for their mock equipment as miners, andthis, again, gave Marshall's adherents the advantage. Theyknew that their opponents would probably first approach the emptyclaim encumbered only with their peaceful implements, while theythemselves had brought their rifles with them. Stacy, who by tacit consent led the party, on reaching the claimat once posted Demorest and Barker each behind a separate heap ofquartz tailings on the ledge, which afforded them a capitalbreastwork, and stationed himself at the mouth of the tunnel whichwas nearest the trail. It had already been arranged what each manwas to do. They were in possession. For the rest they must wait.What they thought at that moment no one knew. Their characteristicappearance had slightly changed. The melancholy and philosophicDemorest was alert and bitter. Barker's changeful face had becomefixed and steadfast. Stacy alone wore his "fighting look," whichthe others had remembered. They had not long to wait. The sounds of rude laughter, coarseskylarking, and voices more or less still confused with half-spentliquor came from the rocky trail. And then Steptoe appeared withpart of his straggling followers, who were celebrating their easyinvasion by clattering their picks and shovels and beating loudlyupon their tins and prospecting-pans. The three partners quicklyrecognized the stamp of the strangers, in spite of their peacefulimplements. They were the waifs and strays of San Franciscowharves, of Sacramento dens, of dissolute mountain towns; and therewas not, probably, a single actual miner among them. A raging scornand contempt took possession of Barker and Demorest, but Stacy knewtheir exact value. As Steptoe passed before the opening of thetunnel he heard the cry of "Halt! He looked up. He saw Stacy not thirty yards before him with hisrifle at half-cock. He saw Barker and Demorest, fully armed, risefrom behind their breastworks of rock along the ledge and thusfully occupy the claim. But he saw more. He saw that his plot wasknown. Outlaw and desperado as he was, he saw that he had lost hismoral power in this actual possession, and that from that moment hemust be the aggressor. He saw he was fighting no irresponsiblehirelings like his own, but men of position and importance, whoseloss would make a stir. Against their rifles the few revolvers thathis men chanced to have slung to them were of little avail. But hewas not cowed, although his few followers stumbled together at thismomentary check, half angrily, half timorously like wolves withouta leader. "Bring up the other men and their guns," he whisperedfiercely to the nearest. Then he faced Stacy. "Who are you to stop peaceful miners going to work ontheir own claim?" he said coarsely. "I'll tell you who,boys," he added, suddenly turning to his men with a hoarse laugh."It ain't even the bank! It's only Jim Stacy, that the bank kickedout yesterday to save itself,--Jim Stacy and his broken-down pals.And what's the thief doing here--in Marshall's tunnel--the onlyspot that Marshall can claim? We ain't no particular friends o'Marshall's, though we're neighbors on the same claim; but we ain'tgoing to see Marshall ousted by tramps. Are we, boys?" "No, by G-d!" said his followers, dropping the pans and seizingtheir picks and revolvers. They understood the appeal to arms ifnot to their reason. For an instant the fight seemed imminent. Thena voice from behind them said:-"You needn't trouble yourselves about that! I'M Marshall! I sentthese gentlemen to occupy the claim until I came here with thesurveyor," and two men stepped from a thicket of myrtle in the rearof Steptoe and his followers. The speaker, Marshall, was a thin,slight, overworked, over-aged man; his companion, the surveyor, wasequally slight, but red-bearded, spectacled, and professional-looking, with a long traveling-duster that made him appear evenclerical. They were scarcely a physical addition to Stacy's party,whatever might have been their moral and legal support. But it was just this support that Steptoe strangely clung to inhis designs for the future, and a wild idea seized him. Thesurveyor was really the only disinterested witness between the twoparties. If Steptoe could confuse his mind before the actualfighting--from which he would, of course, escape as anon-combatant--it would go far afterwards to rehabilitate Steptoe'sparty. "Very well, then," he said to Marshall, "I shall call thisgentleman to witness that we have been attacked here in peaceablepossession of our part of the claim by these armed strangers, andwhether they are acting on your order or not, their blood will beon your head." "Then I reckon," said the surveyor, as he tore away his beard,wig, spectacles, and mustache, and revealed the figure of JackHamlin, "that I'm about the last witness that Mr.Steptoe-Horncastle ought to call, and about the last witness thathe ever will call!" But he had not calculated upon the desperation of Steptoe overthe failure of this last hope. For there sprang up in the outlaw'sbrain the same hideous idea that he voiced to his companions at theDivide. With a hoarse cry to his followers, he crashed his pickaxeinto the brain of Marshall, who stood near him, and sprang forward.Three or four shots were exchanged. Two of his men fell, a bulletfrom Stacy's rifle pierced Steptoe's leg, and he dropped forward onone knee. He heard the steps of his reinforcements with theirweapons coming close behind him, and rolled aside on the slopingledge to let them pass. But he rolled too far. He felt himselfslipping down the mountain-side in the slimy shoot of the tunnel.He made a desperate attempt to recover himself, but the treacherousdrift of the loose debris rolled with him, as if he were part ofits refuse, and, carrying him down, left him unconscious, butotherwise uninjured, in the bushes of the second ledge five hundredfeet below. When he recovered his senses the shouts and outcries above himhad ceased. He knew he was safe. The ledge could only be reached bya circuitous route three miles away. He knew, too, that if he couldonly reach a point of outcrop a hundred yards away he could easilydescend to the stage road, down the gentle slope of the mountainhidden in a growth of hazel-brush. He bound up his wounded leg, anddragged himself on his hands and knees laboriously to the outcrop.He did not look up; since his pick had crashed into Marshall'sbrain he had but one blind thought before him--to escape at once!That his revenge and compensation would come later he neverdoubted. He limped and crept, rolled and fell, from bush to bushthrough the sloping thickets, until he saw the red road a few feetbelow him. If he only had a horse he could put miles between him and anypresent pursuit! Why should he not have one? The road wasfrequented by solitary horsemen--miners and Mexicans. He had hisrevolver with him; what mattered the life of another man if heescaped from the consequences of the one he had just taken? Heheard the clatter of hoofs; two priests on mules rode slowly by; heground his teeth with disappointment. But they had scarcely passedbefore another and more rapid clatter came from their rear. It wasa lad on horseback. He started. It was his own son! He remembered in a flash how the boy had said he was coming tomeet the padre at the station on that day. His first impulse was tohide himself, his wound, and his defeat from the lad, but the blindidea of escape was still paramount. He leaned over the bank andcalled to him. The astonished lad cantered eagerly to his side. "Give me your horse, Eddy," said the father; "I'm in bad luck,and must get." The boy glanced at his father's face, at his tattered garmentsand bandaged leg, and read the whole story. It was a familiar pageto him. He paled first and then flushed, and then, with an oddglitter in his eyes, said, "Take me with you, father. Do! Youalways did before. I'll bring you luck." Desperation is superstitious. Why not take him? They had beenlucky before, and the two together might confound any descriptionof their identity to the pursuers. "Help me up, Eddy, and then getup before me." "Behind, you mean," said the boy, with a laugh, as hehelped his father into the saddle. "No," said Steptoe harshly. "Before me,--do you hear? Andif anything happens behind you, don't look! If I drop off,don't stop! Don't get down, but go on and leave me. Do youunderstand?" he repeated almost savagely. "Yes," said the boy tremulously. "All right," said the father, with a softer voice, as he passedhis one arm round the boy's body and lifted the reins. "Hold tightwhen we come to the cross-roads, for we'll take the first turn, forold luck's sake, to the Mission." They were the last words exchanged between them, for as theywheeled rapidly to the left at the cross-roads, Jack Hamlin andDemorest swung as quickly out of another road to the rightimmediately behind them. Jack's challenge to "Halt!" was onlyanswered by Steptoe's horse springing forward under the sharp lashof the riata. "Hold up!" said Jack suddenly, laying his hand upon the riflewhich Demorest had lifted to his shoulder. "He's carrying someone,--a wounded comrade, I reckon. We don't want him. Swingout and go for the horse; well forward, in the neck orshoulder." Demorest swung far out to the right of the road and raised hisrifle. As it cracked Steptoe's horse seemed to have suddenly strucksome obstacle ahead of him rather than to have been hit himself,for his head went down with his fore feet under him, and he turneda half-somersault on the road, flinging his two riders a dozen feetaway. Steptoe scrambled to his knees, revolver in hand, but the otherfigure never moved. "Hands up!" said Jack, sighting his own weapon.The reports seemed simultaneous, but Jack's bullet had piercedSteptoe's brain even before the outlaw's pistol exploded harmlesslyin the air. The two men dismounted, but by a common instinct they both ranto the prostrate figure that had never moved. "By God! it's a boy!" said Jack, leaning over the body andlifting the shoulders from which the head hung loosely. "Neckbroken and dead as his pal." Suddenly he started, and, toDemorest's astonishment, began hurriedly pulling off the glove fromthe boy's limp right hand. "What are you doing?" demanded Demorest in creeping horror. "Look!" said Jack, as he laid bare the small white hand. Thefirst two fingers were merely unsightly stumps that had been hiddenin the padded glove. "Good God! Van Loo's brother!" said Demorest, recoiling. "No!" said Jack, with a grim face, "it's what I have longsuspected,--it's Steptoe's son!" "His son?" repeated Demorest. "Yes," said Jack; and he added, after looking at the two bodieswith a long-drawn whistle of concern, "and I wouldn't, if I wereyou, say anything of this to Barker." "Why?" said Demorest. "Well," returned Jack, "when our scrimmage was over down there,and they brought the news to Barker that his wife and her diamondswere burnt up at the hotel, you remember that they said that Mrs.Horncastle had saved his boy." "Yes," said Demorest; "but what has that to do with it?" "Nothing, I reckon," said Jack, with a slight shrug of hisshoulders, "only Mrs. Horncastle was the mother of the boy that'slying there." ...... Two years later as Demorest and Stacy sat before the fire in theold cabin on Marshall's claim-now legally their own--they lookedfrom the door beyond the great bulk of Black Spur to the pallidsnow-line of the Sierras, still as remote and unchanged to them aswhen they had gazed upon it from Heavy Tree Hill. And, for thematter of that, they themselves seemed to have been left sounchanged that even now, as in the old days, it was Barker's voiceas he greeted them from the darkening trail that alone broke theirreverie. "Well," said Demorest cheerfully, "your usual luck, Barker boy!"for they already saw in his face the happy light they had once seenthere on an eventful night seven years ago. "I'm to be married to Mrs. Horncastle next month," he saidbreathlessly, "and little Sta loves her already as if she was hisown mother. Wish me joy." A slight shadow passed over Stacy's face; but his hand was thefirst to grasp Barker's, and his voice the first to say "Amen!"